Picture Perfect
by Alba Nix
Summary: A mysterious painting has burnt down nine houses and remained unharmed. SPR is brought in to investigate. The summer heat is intense and everyone starts to let their guard down; soon houses aren't the only thing burning. Implied LinxMai. With sequel.
1. Under Glass

Title: **Picture Perfect**

Author: **Aishoka**

Rating: **T / PG-13 / 12A**

Summary: _Short story -__ SPR investigates a painting that mysteriously remained unharmed when its owners' house went up in flames. And houses aren't the only thing burning..._

Dedicated to: **Kyia Star** **a.k.a. Aki-nee **- _happy birthday! Thank you for your support and for being such a great friend! (About the china - just had to!)_

Author's (Rather Long) Note: _I've tried to make this story as different to Smitten Apart as possible. Firstly, Kasai Chiaki works at SPR as well, a detail which to put in SA I would have required more knowledge of the original novels than I possessed when I wrote the first chapter. Secondly, the narrative style is completely different - this story focuses more on events as opposed to the feelings and development of the characters, and is written in what I think is a more poetic, less contemporary, omniscient style. Thirdly, it is a lot more light-hearted, a lot more fiery (I know my sense of humour is terrible) and a lot less complicated. Fourthly, the chapters are a lot shorter and scene-based, as this is a novella. Fifthly, the case is based largely on a true story. Sixthly, the pairings are blatant. In fact, they're basically the same as in "Shades of Lust" and "Dancing Queen" as this is, after all, a birthday present for Kyia Star. So, without further ado, happy birthday, Aki-nee! I hope you like this, and I hope all you other readers enjoy it as well!_

_P.S. I am no authority on police procedures in Japan... Just humour me if it's ridiculous!_

**Chapter 1**

**Under Glass**

The fan was really the last straw; Mai had endured Masako's intolerance of that summer's heat wave for long enough. She insisted on wearing her usual traditional kimono and then complaining that she was hot, as if for the entire world she genuinely believed that it was entirely the gods' fault. When she sauntered into the SPR office, wafting a lace fan in front of her face, Mai forgot all thoughts of tact and deliberately increased the speed of the electric fan that rested on her desk.

"Mai! Tea!" Naru's voice called from behind the door of his office; while authoritative as ever, even the great Oliver Davis was showing annoyance towards the _chaleur _in the strained tone in which he spoke. Mai sighed. She couldn't comprehend how anyone could stand consuming a hot drink in such weather. However, she dutifully rose, heard orders for more water from the 

other members of SPR, lingered for a moment in front of her fan, and made her way wearily towards the kitchen.

She deliberated between opening the window to coax in the tiny breeze that lazed around, exhausted, outside, and keeping it shut to stop the heat inviting itself in as well. She settled on leaving it closed to avoid making the effort of stretching to open it, and, pushing a sticky strand of hair out of her face, she sought a sample of the new china that she and Chiaki had bought, partly out of mutual loathing of Naru's plain china and partly to vex its stern owner.

"Lin-san," she called half-heartedly, without caring whether the Chinese sorcerer could hear her, "would you like a drink?"

"Iced tea, please," he shouted back.

Lin alone seemed to be coping in the heat - the others were all sweltering. Apart from the unnecessary scene that Masako was creating, Bou-san had been sprawled zombie-like across the couch for at least fifteen minutes, and Ayako had, when Mai had last looked, been attempting to cool herself by means of scented wipes. Poor John was trying to be uncomplaining, but was clearly undergoing an immense struggle in his black outfit. Chiaki was pouring water onto her hands to douse her face. And Yasuhara was, for once, less than immaculate. Mai herself had gone as far as to wrestle her short hair into a bun. Lin, however, was as quiet as ever.

The bubbling of the water in the kettle was joined by the sound of the telephone ringing in Naru's office; Mai crossed her fingers and hoped that it was his mother or Madoka. She poured the tea not quite carelessly, filled several glasses of water, and took a bottle of iced tea out of the fridge. Too hot to be subtle, Mai busied herself with taking Naru's tea into his office and pretending to stay there merely because of the air conditioning; in fact, she was confirming her worst fears.

"Are you sure it wasn't just a coincidence? ... It was placed near other objects that burned? ... It was completely untouched? ... Have you ever felt uncomfortable around it? ... What makes you sure that something paranormal was involved?" Naru was asking rather impatiently.

Mai groaned silently and placed the tea on Naru's office so sulkily that some of the liquid almost flowed out of the cup. As she expected, Naru didn't even look up at her - as it hadn't touched his precious desk, why would he? A tired frown on her face, Mai trudged back towards the door, only to hear Naru say abruptly, "Careful, Mai."

She paused in the doorway for a moment, and turned her head slightly, but only closed the door behind her and returned to the kitchen to fetch the rest of the drinks and convey them to the main room.

"Someone's trying to get Naru to accept a case," she declared, to groans and grimaces all around. "I think it was something to do with a fire."

"Can't they just call the fire brigade?" Bou-san demanded grumpily. "They probably don't even know anything about ghosts."

"If he accepts it, I'll kill him," Ayako said resolutely; Chiaki immediately gave her approval.

"Perhaps the fire brigade have already come and couldn't find a starting point for the fire," John suggested diplomatically. He immediately fell silent again upon receiving non-verbal death threats from Bou-san and Ayako.

"Lin!" Naru shouted from his office. Mai realised suddenly that she had forgotten to take the iced tea to him; she winced as Naru's other assistant came out of his own office, spied it on the table and merely picked it up without glancing once in her direction. Somehow, a lack of complaint seemed worse than awful.

The exchange between teenaged boss and twenty-something assistant had only worsened the mood in the office. Bou-san turned face-down on the couch, only to flip over again when his face became too hot; Ayako wrung out one of her scented wipes in despair; Yasuhara wiped his forehead to no avail; Chiaki rearranged her hair for what seemed to be the fiftieth time; Masako started fanning herself even more fiercely. Mai turned her own fan up another level and rested her head on the desk.

Seconds later, Lin emerged from the office, utterly unaffected. His announcement was not needed. "We have a case."

With a mixture of awe and horror, Mai stared at the blackened shell of what had once been a rather nice house, from what she could see. Chiaki, Yasuhara and John were the only others who seemed even remotely curious; Mai concluded that with it age brought cynicism. Naru, of course, was an exception.

"I fail to see the point of this. It's a burnt down house. What does that have to do with us?" Bou-san demanded of Naru. "It's absolutely _roasting_!"

It was, indeed, ridiculously hot, so much so that even Mai had taken to fanning herself with a piece of paper, to her chagrin and Chiaki's amusement. She and the other girl felt mutual scorn of Masako's flamboyancies, even if neither of them particularly disliked her. And the SPR team was, indeed, standing in front of the burnt carcass of a house.

"What are we here for then, boss?" Yasuhara asked with as much cheer as he could muster. Mai thought it very telling that he had not asked for details of the case earlier; none of the rest of them had, either, but Yasuhara was always the efficient one among them.

In answer to that question, Naru strode off towards an area where both firemen and policemen were gathered. The group turned to look at the muddle of personages that made up SPR, which had no resemblance whatsoever to a professional organisation.

"Push off, kids - this is no place for you to be meddling," one of the police officers shouted gruffly.

Silently, Naru approached them and introduced himself. "My name is Shibuya Kazuya and this is Shibuya Psychic Research. We were requested by the owners of the house to come and investigate the fire."

"Psychic Research?" one of the officers repeated incredulously. "A bit young for that sort of thing, aren't you? Pull the other one!"

"I spoke to the owners on the phone this afternoon. They say a painting was completely untouched by the fire," Naru replied coolly. "They seem to think that this is related to something paranormal. We have come to find out if it is."

A man who seemed to be the superior police officer exchanged a glance with another man, presumably the superior fireman. "Do you own this company, kid? Or your parents?" he asked.

"I do."

Another glance.

"Do you have proof you're who you say you are?"

Mai and Chiaki bit their lips and smirked at each other while Naru wordlessly and robotically produced a card for SPR and his own driving licence.

"How old is the youngest you have here?" the policeman asked.

"Seventeen."

"And the oldest?"

"Twenty-seven."

The policeman sighed and signified to one of his colleagues to seek out the owners of the house. A few minutes later, he returned with an angry-faced man and stricken-faced woman. Mai tuned out, concentrating on the thought of an ice cream, but she ascertained that these were the owners of the house and that they confirmed that SPR's presence had been asked for.

Reluctantly, the policeman said, "You can do whatever you do to the painting as long as you use gloves, you clean your... stuff, if you have stuff... and you don't go near the house itself until our investigation is over."

"I can't wait to see this painting," Chiaki whispered to Mai.

"I'd rather see it in my apartment, where there's air conditioning," Mai said wryly. "And where are we setting up our base exactly?"

Naru was already striding away. With no time for her question to be answered, Mai let out yet another groan and followed him along with the others. He was approaching a police van, out of which a policeman was bringing a small table and what was evidently a painting that had been covered with a sheet. The policeman pulled this sheet off and the object of discussion was revealed to the members of SPR.

It was a painting of a young girl of around five or six. She was staring at the painter with a strangely melancholic expression. She was holding a teddy bear, but her hands were only loosely curled around its limbs and it seemed to give her no comfort whatsoever. She was dressed very well, as though she had had a privileged existence, but had not appreciated material things. The whole effect of the picture was extremely saddening and almost chilling.

"You must be _joking_, Naru-bou!" Bou-san exclaimed. "It's a bloody _painting_! Take it to an art gallery!"

Naru gave Bou-san a dark look and turned to face the others, gesturing to the 'work of art'. "This painting," he said, "was found in that house. It was hanging on a wall in the hallway, with other paintings. They all burned completely. This one remained one hundred percent undamaged."

Naru's words stunned them all into silence. Despite the heat, Mai shivered. As she looked at the face of the girl, she was sure she could see the reflections of flames burning in her eyes.

**To be continued very soon!**

(Yes, this was an introductory chapter – the action's coming in the next one, so please read on if you're here already! And for my _Smitten Apart _readers, please bear with me – I don't think you'll have to hang on for much longer!)


	2. Blazing Trail

Author's (Blissfully Short) Note: _I forgot to mention that this story is anime and manga compliant! I'm sorry for the short reflective bit in the third section, but it's necessary for what's to come! Brownie points to anybody who can find the film quote I've used in this chapter. Hint – it was a film released in 2001. (I spend way too much time on IMDB.) Enjoy Chapter 2._

**Picture Perfect**

**Chapter 2**

**Blazing Trail**

"Now, that makes things a little more interesting," Bou-san declared as he scrutinised the painting of the little girl. "Pretty little thing, wasn't she?"

"Oh, move out of the way, your big head takes up too much room," Ayako snapped at him, nudging him away so that she could get a better look. "Pfft. She looks like a right little diva!"

"Remind you of anyone?" Bou-san muttered under his breath; fortunately for him, Ayako didn't hear.

Naru's attention was concentrated on Masako, to the chagrin of Mai and Chiaki. The medium was looking pointedly at the painting, obviously trying to see something that the others couldn't; Mai thought it would be hard – the ghostly presences of all those who had touched the painting would be lingering there. However, to her surprise – and dismay, although she tried not to show it – Masako announced in a tearful voice, "I can feel a lot of sadness and betrayal from this painting... There is definitely a spirit attached to it... I think it's a child."

Well, what a surprise! Mai raised her eyes to the sky and bit back a sarcastic remark. She had worked out as soon as Masako had said 'spirit' that the soul of the girl in the painting was trapped inside it. It was a little like a book she had read in school, _The Picture of Dorian Gray_... but creepier, because the child was probably dead, not immortal. Now all SPR needed to do was work out who the girl was and what had happened to her, someone would be able to exorcise her, and bingo, they could get out of the heat.

"What's our first move then, Shibuya-san?" Yasuhara asked; Mai translated this as, "What do I need to go look up, boss?"

Naru considered this question for a moment. "Yasuhara, you should try to find out the name of the girl in this painting. Mai, Hara-san, Matsuzaki-san and Kasai-san, I want you to look up any of its previous owners. Lin, Bou-san, John and I will set up the base."

"Why do you think he's separating us based on our gender?" Chiaki whispered to Mai.

"I think it's his terrible attempt at being a gentleman," Mai replied. "He wants us to get out of the heat. But we're probably going to end up in some stuffy building now."

"For goodness' sake!" Ayako grumbled as she came to stand beside the two girls. "Dumping me with a bunch of kids!"

"You just wanted to be with Bou-san, Matsuzaki-san," Masako drawled. Despite herself, Mai giggled; for once, Masako had made an astute and humorous comment. It was certainly amusing to watch Ayako's face turn several different shades of red.

"Is there any such thing as a directory of owners of paintings?" Chiaki asked curiously.

Mai sighed. There probably wasn't. There went her assumption that Naru was trying to be a gentleman; while the men had the more labour-intense assignment, theirs was going to leave them more exhausted. Yasuhara had the hardest research task, but after him, Mai and Chiaki were best at paperwork, and there was going to be a _lot _of note-making required. They'd probably need several maps and phonebooks as well, a couple of gallons of petrol, and plenty of patience. This was going to take all day.

With a resigned slump of her shoulders, Mai approached the owners of the house. The man was still comforting the woman, so Mai gave them a few minutes to prepare to be spoken to, before advancing slowly. "Excuse me. I wondered if you could tell me the name of that painting, and where you got it from."

The woman sniffed again at the mention of the painting, but the man said rather calmly, "It's called _The Lonely Girl_, I think. And we got it from an antique shop, didn't we, honey?" he said, addressing his wife while answering Mai's question. "It was called... Tottori's Antiques."

"Thank you very much. That's very helpful," Mai said enthusiastically. She nodded in farewell and turned to walk away; as she did so, the smile vanished from her face immediately and her eyelids half-closed in protest against such work in such heat.

"So we've got the details – let's get going then," Ayako declared before Mai could open her mouth. Normally Mai would have frowned and rejected this take-over, but now she was happy to let the older woman be in control of the situation – she herself was far too hot to be giving orders.

The four females trooped towards Ayako's car.

"Mai. Notes."

Mai groaned and smacked her forehead.

OOOOO

"Tottori-san," Mai began in what she hoped was a suitably engaging – and clear – tone, "would you be able to tell us if you sold a painting called _The Lonely Girl _recently? You see, we're from Shibuya Psychic Research and we're investigating this painting with regards to paranormal activity." Mai winced at her own formal tone and found herself longing for the days when she would chat amiably and easily with the infuriating Michiru and Keiko.

The old man behind the counter in the dusty, dim, oxygen-lacking antique shop squinted at Mai and seemed to take a few minutes to process what she had said. Mai thought he would take long enough for her to calculate the average time he spent deciphering each word, but then finally someone switched on a light and the man nodded. He pulled out a filthy, tattered book from a shelf under the till and began searching through the sale records; another ten minutes in this inferno, Mai guessed. Fortunately the shop owner seemed to know what he was looking for. Judging by his age, Mai thought idly that whoever took over this business – if anyone did – wouldn't be another Tottori.

"Yes," Tottori-san croaked. "I sold _The Lonely Girl _to... Miyagi Akio, two months ago."

"And where did _you_ get it from?" Mai asked.

Tottori-san frowned and he thought about this. "I bought it from its last owners. No art fans wanted to buy that painting after those people. They say it was cursed."

Her jaw having almost dropped, Mai exchanged an overjoyed look with the three members of her audience and returned, beaming, to Tottori-san. "Cursed?" she repeated, trying not to sound too eager about it. "In what way?"

"Someone told me they thought the spirit of the girl was trapped in it. I don't believe in that nonsense, but apparently whoever owned that painting saw their house burn down soon after they bought it. It happened to all the previous owners as well. I've had the thing in my shop for years and nothing has happened to it, so personally I think it's a load of rubbish." The old man had become surprisingly animated, and Mai actually took a wary step back.

"So, Miyagi-san is the first person who has owned this painting in quite a while?" Mai clarified.

The old man nodded. "Yes. Before that, it had many wealthy owners. There was an article in the newspaper about it when the last owner's house burned down."

Mai didn't know whether to be absolutely overjoyed or thoroughly horrified. Newspapers were Yasuhara's speciality, and she found sorting through them utterly unbearable, but then again, at least she could return to Naru with something concrete to work with. He couldn't say she was useless. Although Mai wouldn't be surprised if Masako tried to take all the credit, if she herself tried to protest, if Chiaki then tried to calm her down, and if, consequently, Naru believed Masako. But she was getting distracted.

"Could you tell us when that was?" she asked keenly.

"Oh, it was about... twenty-four years ago. And it was in winter." Tottori-san winked at Mai. "I'm not just your average old man. If I were, I wouldn't be selling antiques. Most of the stuff in here is supposedly supernatural, you know. If you're paranormal investigators, you should come back sometime."

Mai forced a smile that probably looked more like a frightened grimace. "That's nice," she said. "I'd love to come back one day. We're really busy though." With that, she bowed to the man and hurried out of the shop, the other three scuttling after her.

"Wow, am I glad to be out of there," Mai said, breathing in the fresh, albeit warm, air outside.

"That man told us a lot," Masako protested, but she was fanning herself more fiercely than ever. Mai wasn't surprised, considering her stubborn refusal to change out of her kimono and the stifling heat inside the old man's haunted lair.

"And condemned us to a visit to the _library_," Ayako grumbled. "I hate that place. It's so humid – it just makes my hair frizz up. And there are no magazines there, just boring books. All too long."

"Books aren't boring, Matsuzaki-san!" Chiaki exclaimed. "How can you even say that? Besides, it's not like you have to stay _in _the library to read a book. How many books have you read, ever?"

"Far too many for my liking," Ayako said triumphantly, guessing correctly that Chiaki thought the answer would be 'hardly any'. "You think I'd listen to some old crone whittle along on an audiotape while I was studying to become a doctor? No way. I had to read like everyone else, and now I _am _a doctor, I've done my fair share of squinting, thank you very much."

A little put out, but still refusing to back down, Chiaki scowled and quickened the speed at which she was walking back to the car. Mai sighed inwardly; the heat was affecting everyone in more ways than one, but none of the ways were good. She marvelled at how old Tottori-san managed to hold up inside his furnace of a shop; perhaps he was a vampire and he wasn't affected by temperature – it certainly make sense, considering the lack of light inside his shop. He had certainly freaked her out. She shuddered as she remembered Urado's leering face, and told herself to stop being so morbid.

OOOOO

The silence in the little corner of the library that the woman had selected was broken only by four alternating sighs, the sound of Masako wafting her fan, and the excruciating sound of Ayako attempting to file a broken nail on the _library table_. Mai's vision was beginning to blur, but she continued to plough through newspaper after newspaper, deciphering smudged print and trying to skim-read pretentiously written articles. Chiaki was working as fast as she, but Masako was only getting through one newspaper for their four, and Mai knew that Ayako's attention wasn't on the task at hand _at all_. Oh well. It was probably for the best. If Ayako touched the pile of newspapers, she would probably get the one with the article in and skip over it accidentally. Such was Mai's luck.

Mai tried to deny the fact that she wanted Naru to be impressed with her solo efforts, and that that was why she was being far more uncomplaining than was humanly natural, but she couldn't really ignore the obvious. For once, Mai was doing something on her own – well, with three others, but without being overseen by Naru, at least – and she wanted to return and see him _look _at it, make him acknowledge the fact that she was good at more than tea-making. It was something she was constantly trying to do, but she had never had a chance as big as this before.

Even so, she knew that it was a fruitless task. Perhaps she was less than objective where she was concerned, but she had noticed that Chiaki was prone to relish Naru's attention as well, and that this attention was far less notable than Chiaki perceived it to be. A simple, "Could you pass me that phone directory, please?" made Chiaki glow with pride and made Mai think, _Am I that pathetic too? _She was, and she knew it. It didn't really stop her.

It really should have stopped her. No matter the amount of kindness and concern with which Naru lavished Mai in her dreams, he was _not _going to make any displays of public affection. And after all, it did not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Naru treated her _badly_. He was nice to her when she was asleep and then treated her like the dirt on the bottom of his shoe when they were in public! Well, okay, maybe a little better than that, but still far worse than she deserved. Mai swore he had Multiple Personality Disorder, and Michiru had always told her that guys with psychological problems were to be _avoided_.

"Hey, look, I found it!" Chiaki exclaimed in triumph.

"Ssssssh, it's a library!" Mai said automatically, jumping out of her reverie. Then she fully took in what Chiaki had said. "What? Where?"

"Look," Chiaki said excitedly, pointing to a small article that took up merely a quarter of a page. Masako stopped fanning herself and leaned over at Chiaki's other side, and even Ayako looked up and stopped scowling a little.

"Cursed painting leaves a blazing trail in suburban Shibuya," Mai read out loud. "A seemingly innocent portrait, entitled _The Lonely Girl_, has seen all of its past nine owners' houses burn down. Strangely, this beautiful piece of art has remained undamaged each time. Good art should always be preserved, but the homeowners who have now had to move would surely have preferred the painting to burn instead!"

"Sounds like they think it's funny," Masako commented lazily. She had a point.

"The first Shibuya house to burn down was that of Hirata Tsurugi," continued Chiaki, "who seemingly bought the painting elsewhere, as the mysterious artwork has not been recorded in any Shibuya police files before then. Since then, despite the painting's increasingly disturbing reputation, its uncanny beauty has won over the hearts of several more unfortunate homeowners. The painting, which is by an unheard-of artist, Morita Jouta, and is believed to depict a young girl by the name of Okabe Nayuko, has now been purchased by Tottori Toyoki, of Tottori's Antiques, who claims that no harm will come to his shop. It will be interesting to see if his prediction is correct."

"Yes!" Mai said delightedly, but quietly, pumping her fist. "I can't wait to get back and—"

Suddenly, her mobile phone started to vibrate. Before it could start to play the ringtone, Mai yanked it out of her pocket and held it up to her ear with a coy smile at the other three women seated at the table. "Moshi moshi!" she said cheerfully.

"Mai," Naru began with no other greeting.

"Naru, we found the name of the girl in the painting! And its first owner!" Mai announced hurriedly, lest he criticise her slow progress before she got the chance.

"Yes, yes, I know. Yasuhara has brought us the names and details of the artist, the girl, and all of its owners. We need you to come back to base."

Mai's jaw dropped in disbelief and the light disappeared from her eyes. Damn that Yasuhara! Why did he _always _have to be the one that looked good? She couldn't even hate him, because he did actually deserve the credit – he worked extremely hard and extremely well. It wasn't as if all he had to his name was fame, like Masako did. But still, it just wasn't fair. Why couldn't she, Mai, get to shine for once?

Mai saw the disappointment seep into Chiaki's expression as well and guilt seized her facial muscles and vocal chords: she put on a fake smile and said, "Right, sure, Naru. We'll be right there."

With that, she snapped her mobile phone shut. It felt strangely satisfying to be the one to hang up first.

OOOOO

Mai surveyed the establishment that the males of SPR had set up and were calling their 'base'. She could hardly believe her eyes; Naru, the perfectionist, had agreed to _this_? Looking at the makeshift headquarters, even she was pushed not to quit the investigation entirely.

"I am _not _sleeping in a _tent_," Ayako shouted at Bou-san.

"Aww, come on, Ayako! It'll be fun! It's summer! Look how hot it is! If we weren't working we'd be doing something fun, and camping's fun, right?"

"This is hardly _camping_; it's practically a Girl Scouts trip!" Ayako shrieked. "Or a school trip where the boys and girls are separated so they don't get up to anything naughty!"

"Did you want to get up to something naughty, Miko-san?" Masako asked from behind her sleeve – and fan.

Ayako rounded on the teenage medium with a fierce snarl. "You shut up and stay out of it. You're all over Naru all the time, so if I were you I'd keep your mouth closed."

"It isn't that bad, Matsuzaki-san," Chiaki ventured. "I'm sure the tents aren't that uncomfortable."

"Are we even allowed to camp here though?" Mai asked, voicing the concern that had come to her after she had pushed her initial disgust to the back of her mind.

"Yeah, we are," Bou-san said defensively.

"The policemen said we could," John explained.

"Is Naru here?" Masako asked. Mai rolled her eyes and looked at Chiaki, who returned the bemused expression; a leopard clearly never changed its spots, even in a totally different environment. Mai wondered what it would be like to send Masako off to the Arctic. The other girl would certainly go if Naru told her to. What a farce. Three averagely extraordinary teenage girls were in love with their shared, very excessively extraordinary teenage boss.

"He and Lin have that tent there," Bou-san replied. Mai didn't need to look to know it was the biggest one. "That one there is for John, Yasuhara and me. That one is Ayako and Masako, and the last one is Mai and Chiaki."

Apparently the tents decreased in size. What a surprise that she and Chiaki had been allocated the smallest. She wondered whose idea that was; if the other women had set it up, she would have said Masako immediately, but as none of the men held grudges against her, and Naru wasn't petty like that, she had no idea. It occurred to her that it had probably just been for practicality purposes and she was being paranoid. She told the voice of Reason in her head to shut up and stop making her look bad.

"We took the liberty of going to each of your residences to get you clothes – the landlords let us into the apartments," were John's next words. Undoubtedly the placid, inoffensive priest had been chosen to deliver the news that the men had been inside the women's apartments, and Mai thought this was an excellent idea. "I was the only one who went in," he added hastily upon seeing Ayako direct yet another death glare towards Bou-san; if her sharp glances had been judge's sentences, Bou-san would have had to be reincarnated as a cat twice before he would get out of jail.

"The clothes are all in the tents," Yasuhara finished.

"I'm going to set up camp then," Mai put in. She couldn't stand being around the others for any longer.

OOOOO

Everything was black. The only sound was the ruffling of pages. Mai blinked, but it wasn't a problem with her vision, or even with the lights – in this dream, she just wasn't going to see anything. That was a little boring.

Then the voice started.

At first there was a low, slightly maniacal laugh, followed by a man's frenzied voice whispering, "Hirata Tsurugi, Sanwa Minao, Ueno Yuugou, Kondo Yasumi, Nakazawa Kouta, Tominaga Kazuyasu, Jouda Tadami, Sasaki Hiroyo, and Kogawa Kanya. We did a fine job, darling... You're not forgotten..."

Nine names. The names of the nine owners of _The Lonely Girl_?

She waited for the voice to tell her if she was right or wrong, but no voice came.


	3. Scores and Smithereens

Author's (Somewhat Off-Topic) Note: _Firstly, kudos to KaiSea who got that the quote was from the first HP film! (Before Harry and Dumbledore both got butchered. I think it was around film 4 that things really got bad.) Well, anyway, I'll shut up now. This chapter is a bit of a filler, but we finally get some proper interaction... and a little more creepiness. Plus angst. I hate myself. Why can't I write anything chipper? That's my next challenge. I'm going to do something really cheerful. Anyway, I said I'd shut up. Without further ado, enjoy Chapter 3!_

_PS. To anyone who was confused—because I admit that when I read over it, I got confused myself—the first voice that Mai refers to at the end of Chapter 2 ("the voice started") is the one that actually speaks. The second voice ("she waited for the voice... but no voice came") is that of the Naru in her dreams._

_NB. I know I said this story is manga compliant, and it is, but it's still set somewhere in the future._

**Picture Perfect**

**Chapter 3**

**Scores and Smithereens**

Mai sighed and rubbed her eyes. Every time she had tried to sleep, she had been jolted awake, and it wasn't even because of the cold floor in the tent; every time she had drifted off, she had heard that same voice, repeating those same nine names. It was much different to her usual dreams, but equally as cryptic.

Sitting up in her sleeping bag, she glanced over at Chiaki. The other girl was curled up in a foetal position, with her hair spread across her pillow, snoring softly – all in all, sleeping blissfully, damn her. A few strands of sunlight were finding their way through the tiny gaps between the two front flaps of the tent, which was suddenly becoming very hot and stuffy... Mai pushed the quilt away, preparing to get out of the bag—

—when the front of the tent rustled.

Mai froze, her breath catching in her throat. It was completely irrational to be worried about this. It had nothing to do with her dream, so it was hardly likely to be anything sinister. It was probably just one of the other members of SPR. Comforting herself with this notion, Mai struggled to stand up without hitting her head on the tent's roof and either rousing Chiaki by rocking the whole structure or falling down on top of her friend and waking her that way. Expecting Bou-san, she stuck her head out of the tent, squinting, not yet seeing anything in the morning light.

"Good morning, Taniyama-san," said a voice that was most definitely _not _Bou-san's.

Mai stumbled out of the tent into the broad daylight and blinked several times while her vision adjusted to the brightness. "Lin-san," she stammered. "Wh-what...?" She didn't finish her sentence, because her eyes were finally producing an image of the man in front of her. The first thing she noticed was that he was holding a kettle. The second thing she noticed was that he was regarding her nightdress with a rather amused expression that was nothing for her to smile about in the slightest.

"Naru asked me to bring you this kettle, in case he wants tea," Lin explained. "It's battery-operated."

_Where the hell do you find a battery-operated kettle?! _was on the tip of Mai's tongue. It would have been swiftly followed by, _The nerve of that man! It's the crack of dawn!_ but she found she had forgotten how to speak.

It suddenly occurred to Mai that Lin was still offering the kettle to her, so, nervously, she took it. It was heavier than she expected, and she almost dropped it, but she managed to hold on to a shred of her dignity and tightened her grip, pulling the empty water container up to her chest and wrapping her arms around it self-consciously. Like it was a teddy bear. Mai blushed.

"What time is it, Lin-san?" Mai asked, finding her voice at the very back of her throat and coaxing it out into the sunlight.

"It's only eight thirty. Everyone else is still asleep."

"Let me guess. Naru got up at seven," Mai said with a small smile and a roll of her eyes.

"Six," Lin corrected. "You should go back to bed. He _insisted _I bring you this kettle _right now_, even though he doesn't want the tea yet. I think I'll manage to distract him long enough for you to get another forty winks." As he said this, Mai could have sworn she saw _him _wink at _her_, but it was probably just a trick of the light, caused by lack of sleep and the early hour.

She sighed when she understood his recommendation. "I don't think I'll get to sleep again, Lin-san. Would _you_ like some tea now?"

The rather mischievous expression on Lin's face—was she still in a dream?—vanished and was replaced immediately by one of concern. "Why wouldn't you be able to sleep? Have you had a dream? A nightmare?" He waited a few seconds, but when Mai didn't reply right away, he added, "And no, thank you."

"It wasn't a nightmare, it was just... weird," Mai said, wrinkling her nose. "I'm going to try and get some more rest anyway, though. Thank you, Lin-san."

She turned wearily to go back to the tent, but she was stopped by his next words: "What are you thanking me for?"

It was actually a relevant question. Mai turned her head to look at him, her arms still wrapped around the kettle; she took in his smart trousers and shirt—granted, a few top buttons were undone, but he was still dressed. Despite the fact that a clock could testify in her defence easily, all she could think of was how stupid she must look. "I don't know," she replied honestly. "For not making fun of my teddy bears?" she joked. _Oh, no, Mai_, her inner self groaned instantly. _It's still too early. You should have stuck to 'I don't know'. You're just drawing attention to them and embarrassing yourself further._

Lin chuckled darkly and shook his head. "You do not have to apologise for your teddy bears. It is understandable; they normally come out between ten at night and ten in the morning. Then they have a teddy bear picnic at breakfast, and go to sleep."

"You're making fun of me _now_, Lin-san," Mai said accusingly.

Oddly, his expression shifted again, becoming as stoic as usual. Mai was glad she hadn't blinked—she had been forcing her eyes to stay open—because otherwise, she would have missed the change, and would have convinced herself that he had never been anything but frosty-faced.

"Hmm," Lin murmured, casting a dark look in the direction of his and Naru's tent. "I suppose you aren't used to humour."

With that, he gave her a brisk nod and marched back into his tent, leaving Mai standing, stunned, in front of her own, holding a kettle to her chest and wearing a nightdress covered in scores of teddy bears.

OOOOO

"Lin, I don't even know why you got annoyed about it in the first place, let alone why you're still thinking about it now. Forget it. It's irrelevant. We have the information, now can we focus on that, please?" asked an unusually fazed Shibuya Kazuya.

"I think the pay is the only thing keeping some people here," Lin persisted. "I don't know why you don't just keep Yasuhara and me as permanent employees, and call the others when exorcisms are necessary."

Naru looked up from the laptop that he had set out on the ground and furrowed his brow. He would have frown lines when he was older. "That is effectively what I do, Lin. Only I keep Mai, too."

"To make you tea and do the boring jobs," Lin retorted.

"For goodness' sake, why are _you _suddenly so bothered about what Mai does?" Naru snapped. "She's been making tea and doing 'the boring jobs' for over a year now and you've never even thought about it. It's just the way things are; that way has never been anything to do with you, and you've never wanted anything to do with it. Why do you want changes now?"

"I don't necessarily want you to stop her doing those things, Naru," Lin sighed. "But don't give her something bigger to do and then, while she's in the middle of doing it, tell her that it's already done and she can come back and more make tea."

Naru blinked as if he didn't know what Lin was talking about, although he obviously did. The teenage genius resumed his perpetual expression—a slight scowl—and returned his attention to the computer screen. "I think you may have heatstroke, Lin," he muttered under his breath.

"I am perfectly fine, I assure you," the sorcerer said coolly, and his charge winced. Lin's five Shiki all stared at Naru threateningly.

"I'm trying to concentrate," Naru answered—_was that supposed to be a come-back?_ Lin wondered.

"Why, what are you doing?" Lin asked idly.

"Looking up Okabe Nayuko," Naru replied monotonously.

Lin's eyes bulged. "So you're doing the research yourself now? Why don't you just fire _all _your workers? You're certainly capable of running the whole organisation yourself, as I'm sure you know and are proud of saying to yourself from time to time."

"Shut up, Lin."

"Of course."

The black-haired, blue-eyed beauty actually drew his gaze away from his work at this rather unusual statement, but as Lin's attention had been absorbed by a book in the blink of an eye, he didn't push it. He was too proud to ask for clarification, although it would have done him good to do so.

OOOOO

Mai could have sworn that the swirls created as the hot water sloshed around the cup were spelling out the nine names that she had heard constantly during the night. If she blinked a few times, they disappeared, but as soon as she stopped being alert, she saw them again. Finally, after the tenth hallucination, Mai threw down the cup of tea she was carrying to Naru's tent with a furious cry. The plastic cup that Yasuhara – at least, she thought it was Yasuhara – had bought shattered as soon as it hit the ground, and the hot liquid spread across the stone, just far enough that it reached Mai's sneakers and seeped into her toes. It wasn't particularly hot, but the white canvas at the front of her shoe was stained an ugly dark brown colour. Mai cursed under her breath.

She prepared to turn around and head back to boil the kettle again – it would take her mind off the voices, at least until the tea was actually _in _the cup – but then, surprisingly, the tent flap was pulled back and Naru himself stepped out. His habitual frown was in place, but it conveyed confusion as well as the customary irritation.

"Mai," he greeted coolly, his gaze fixed on the brown patch on the white flags. "I don't pay you to break crockery, you know."

"It was plastic. And it was really cheap," Mai retorted irritably.

Naru's eyes widened slightly and he regarded her closely. "Mai, you're not yourself. I expect no less than top performance from you, whether it's hot or—"

"You've probably got a fan in your tent, haven't you?" Mai interrupted. "Typical you – you let us do all the running around while you sit there in complete comfort, overseeing your minions. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm _hot_, and I'm going to have a rest."

"You don't have time for a rest," was Naru's simple response. For a moment Mai had expected him to admonish her, but then she realised that it wasn't Naru's style; he made sure everyone did the work, and as long as they were doing it, he didn't care if they were complaining about it. He thought, she supposed, that it didn't concern him, or it was above him – or something else equally snobbish and superior.

"I'm sorry if I can't get by on two hours of sleep like you can," Mai snapped. She turned around with every intention of ignoring the next thing that he said, but it wasn't what she expected.

"_Two _hours of sleep? Why did you only get two hours of sleep?" Naru demanded.

She turned her head warily. "I didn't get two hours of sleep. I was just saying that, because, you know, that's probably your nightly quota. I wouldn't be surprised if you were up until four in the morning doing whatever important paperwork you do."

Naru was unfazed. She hated the way she was so easy to read. "How many hours of sleep _did _you get, Mai?" Naru asked.

Mai shrugged. "I don't know. Three or four, maybe?"

The genius pursed his lips. "Tell me about it."

Having been slightly abated, Mai's anger rose again. "Firstly, Naru, you can't just _assume _that there's something I have to tell you. And if there is, it's my decision whether I want to tell you or not. For all you know, it's none of your business," she seethed, looking him in the eye fearlessly. "Secondly, even if I _were _inclined to tell you – that's assuming there's something to tell – that tone would put me off." She was acutely aware that Lin had stepped out of the tent's makeshift doorway and was staring at them, but she ignored him as she had intended to ignore Naru, and turned around yet again.

Naru caught hold of her wrist, outraged. "It _is _my business," he snarled. "If it's to do with _my _organisation, it is one hundred percent my business, and I will sit you down there, right under the sun, until you tell me whatever it is you're withholding."

Mai knew he was right, but she couldn't bear to let him have the last word. "How do you know I'm not just freaked out because I had a steamy dream, Naru?" she blurted.

He let go of her wrist as if had suddenly burst into flames. He silently shook with rage, and turned around, storming back into the tent and leaving Mai fulfilled, but not satisfied.

"Stop staring at me like that," she said to Lin.

"Was it a steamy dream?" he asked curiously. "You did say it was... 'weird', I think was the word you used."

Mai gaped at him. "At least I only get angry in the heat, Lin-san," she muttered. "I don't go psycho." She nodded with her head at the tent, to change the subject. "Do you think I'll still have to make him another cup of tea? I kind of... threw that one down on the floor. In temper."

"If you did, you'd only throw that one too, and then Naru would send you out to get more cups," Lin advised.

"Right, thanks," Mai said curtly. "I'm going for a rest now. And if you tell me I don't have time, I _will _make sure the next cup of tea is aimed at you."

Lin nodded blankly. Relieved, Mai approached her tent and had lifted the flap when he said, "You should tell him, Mai-san. I know you don't want to, and I wouldn't either, but in the long run, it'll be better if you explain to us what is bothering you. When you're ready, of course, but not too late."

In Mai's opinion, that statement did not deserve a response. Lin wasn't exactly the master of communication, after all.

OOOOO

"I hope you're happy," Naru said sarcastically to his older assistant. "I know what you're thinking. He got what he deserved. He needed someone to answer back."

"It's not the first time someone has answered back," Lin pointed out, ignoring the bitterness in Naru's words, and the words themselves.

"Perhaps not, but people always answer back and then _do it anyway_. She's just going to sleep again. She got what she wanted. That isn't supposed to happen," Naru said angrily.

Lin sighed. "Her sleeping is the good thing, normally," he remarked.

"When she actually tells us what happens when she sleeps!"

"Perhaps she can't remember, and that's why she's frustrated."

The shadow-clad young man turned his full attention onto Lin and gave him one of his worst glares. "Stop being such a hypocrite. You don't say anything about my behaviour in public, and then when there's no one listening, you pick up on absolutely everything I do. You do it all the time. Stop trying to find fault with me. You won't succeed. There isn't anything wrong with my work and the way I handle the investigations, because they all get solved. So stop trying to find other things to tear to pieces, Lin."

"I didn't say anything about you," Lin said calmly.

Naru opened his mouth and readied a scathing reply, but something caught his eye on the laptop screen. Sidetracked, he glanced at it; his quick eyes scanned the words, and he allowed himself a small gasp that came with a pleasant surprise.

"Listen to this, Lin," he said, more eagerly. "Okabe Nayuko died in a fire. She was six years old at the time. Her body was burnt to smithereens."


	4. The Game is Afoot

Author's Note: _I am finally embarking on finishing this because it would be stupid to write its successor before I've finished it. Sorry for the wait. I hope my style hasn't changed too much. The last thing I actually wrote and was happy with was an article for my work newsletter. So, bear with me. Also, bonus points to anyone who recognises where the title comes from. Bonne lecture à tous! _

**Picture Perfect**

**Chapter 4**

**The Game is Afoot**

'This had better be good, Naru, because I'm _boiling_,' Ayako warned.

Naru, clad obstinately in a black shirt, glanced up at her with an unfazed expression. 'I do not pay you to complain, Matsuzaki-san,' was his simple retort, earning several muffled sighs as well as a glare from Lin. 'However, I believe it _is _good, as we have a significant development.'

The response from his employees was less enthusiastic than Naru had hoped. Only Mai and Chiaki looked genuinely interested; even Masako didn't seem able to bother with feigning curiosity. Houshou looked like he was willing to put up with anything to finish the case. John looked rather desperate. Yasuhara looked resentful of the fact that he hadn't been the one to produce the development. Ayako, obviously, was furious. Lin just looked bored and slightly annoyed, although it wasn't because of the heat.

'Let's try that again,' Naru snapped. 'We have a significant development.'

'What is it, Naru?' Mai asked; the others still didn't react.

Naru gave up. 'Right. We have learned that the girl in the picture, Okabe Nayuko, was killed in a house fire. Her body was completely burned and scientists had to use her dental records to identify her. The girl's parents were separated; the body was claimed by her father.'

Silence.

'_So_,' Naru continued, 'someone needs to find out who, or what, caused the fire, and someone needs to find out whether a burial took place and if so, where the body was buried, and someone needs to find out whether the girl's father is still alive.'

'That's a lot of jobs for one person,' Houshou remarked.

Naru shot him an icy look. 'I didn't ask for your _opinion_,' he retorted.

'He has a point, Naru – you've assigned every job to someone,' Ayako put in.

'Yes, exactly, what is the problem?' Naru snarled.

'There is no one here called someone,' Ayako smirked.

Naru's brow furrowed, and for a moment it looked like he was going to lose his temper, but he stood up calmly and said, 'Decide it amongst yourselves,' and walked into his tent.

The silence followed him, but as soon as the canopy of Naru's tent swung back over the entrance, uproar broke out. Ayako and Houshou started complaining about Naru's rudeness and somehow ended up arguing with each other even though they were actually on the same side, Masako began panicking over what the heat was doing to her make-up, Chiaki pretended to absorb herself in a book but only succeeded in dripping tears onto it, Yasuhara slumped on the floor in an uncharacteristic sulk and John frantically began trying to calm everyone down – unsuccessfully.

'It looks like you and I are the only sane ones here, Taniyama-san,' Lin commented lazily.

Mai looked up at him, surprised – she hadn't expected him to ever compare them in any way. Then again, looking at the rest of SPR, it was a natural thing for him to say. 'I guess so,' she replied. 'It must be the heat. It puts everyone in a bad mood. It's a bad time to investigate such a high-profile case. No one is in the right frame of mind.'

'You seem fine,' Lin pointed out.

'Yeah, but I'm used to being outside in the heat – playing softball and stuff like that,' Mai shrugged. 'No one else is, really.'

They observed the effects of the said heat for a few more seconds before, astonishingly, John seemed to make himself heard. 'PLEASE BE QUIET!' he shouted. 'Obviously we're going to have to divide those three tasks that Shibuya-san gave us, between us. I presume Shibuya-san is not going to take part in the investigations himself, Lin-san?' he asked.

'Correct,' Lin replied.

'And you will be staying with him?' John went on.

Lin pondered this for a moment. 'I'll stay here, to even things out,' he answered eventually, surprising Mai once again. Even _Lin _had turned against Naru. Mai began to experience a small feeling of pity for her self-important boss, but it was true that he wasn't handling the situation very well. An overworked team was unlikely to respond to a boss who wanted them to carry on working without an iota of praise.

'All right,' John mused. 'Takigawa-san, would you please go with Matsuzaki-san, and look for the girl's father. If you find him quickly enough, please try not to argue in front of him. Osamu-san, will you come with me, and we'll look through the burial records in local graveyards, because I know quite a few people in those establishments. And Lin-san, if you could try to find out what caused the fire, because you probably know more than the rest of us, and take Taniyama-san and Hara-san with you, in case you find a site where their skills would be useful, that would be perfect. Kasai-san, if you would like to stay and assist Shibuya-san...?'

Wise move, Mai thought. Chiaki cheered up, even though the task was a daunting one, and immediately got up and ran over to Naru's tent.

The rest of the ensemble nodded thoughtfully. Mai marvelled that no one had questioned John's authority. His insight when allocating roles had been unexpected and Mai imagined that his sermons were extremely inspiring to those privileged enough to hear them.

'Right then, let's go,' Houshou declared. He motioned to Ayako and turned around to tromp towards his car. Ayako's hand tightened around her handbag for a second, but in the end she decided that she couldn't be bothered berating him for not being enough of a gentleman, and her grip relaxed and she followed him, amazingly, without protest. Yasuhara stood up, seemingly in better spirits although Mai imagined that he was only slightly more pleased about going around interviewing John's contacts than he had been about Naru making the big scoop. Mai had no sympathy for him at this moment, even though she liked him generally. She stayed where she was, next to Lin, and they were soon joined by Masako, who smiled weakly and looked like she was sweltering.

'Masako-san, would you like to borrow a t-shirt and skirt from my tent? You look really hot and we'll be in a car for a while,' Mai ventured, fully expecting the other girl to refuse.

'Oh, yes please, Mai-san. That is very generous of you,' Masako accepted gratefully. Mai tried not to show her surprise and led Masako to her tent, leaving her there to choose something to wear.

'It looks like the game is afoot,' Lin said when she returned.

Mai cast a glance around the base, now completely empty. The footsteps of the SPR members, there only moments ago, were still visible in the dust. As Mai noticed this, a gust of hot wind blew against them and the tracks disappeared.

'I think it is,' she replied.

OOOOO

The flats were completely disgusting. Ayako mourned the future of her perfectly manicured nails as she reached up a finger to press on the bell with a wince. She didn't hold out much hope – the place didn't look at all inhabited. The word 'Okabe' on the label was so faded that she had almost thought they'd come to the wrong place.

The door to the building was opened by an old woman who looked to be in her seventies, who peered at them unseeingly through a huge pair of obviously useless glasses. Ayako bit back a sigh and hoped their hostess wasn't deaf as well. 'We're looking for Okabe-san,' she said slowly, and clearly.

Beside her, Houshou shifted from one foot to another. He had done nothing but fidget since their arrival but at least he hadn't said anything obnoxious. He hadn't really said anything at all. Ayako had thought she'd prefer the silent version of him but she was starting to wish he'd say _something_; after all, when he wasn't being a total moron, he was reasonably entertaining.

'Okabe-san?' the woman repeated. Ayako groaned inwardly as she repeated the name a few more times, getting quieter with each reiteration. It seemed as though the words were going to trail off into nothing when the woman said, 'Oh, yes, he lives here. But he hasn't come out of his flat for _days _– I think maybe he's ill.'

Ayako and Houshou shared an apprehensive look. They followed the woman, at a painfully slow pace, up three flights of stairs to a mould-covered door at the end of a musty corridor whose windows were black with dirt. There the old crone left them, and Ayako privately thought that there was no _way _she was ringing on _this _doorbell.

'God, the man must be a complete tramp,' Houshou complained. 'Look at the state of this place. You think he'd take more care of it.'

'Maybe he's descended into utter despair after the death of his daughter,' Ayako suggested. 'I can't imagine that experience.'

'Well, you haven't got any children,' Houshou replied.

'I _know _that,' Ayako said quickly. 'That's exactly why I can't imagine it. But not only that – I can't imagine losing someone you love so much like that. I mean, she was all he had, he'd split up with his wife... This is depressing.'

'It's always depressing when it's children,' Houshou murmured, and when she looked at him, his face was solemn and almost kind.

She smiled feebly. 'You can knock on the door,' she said in reply.

Houshou knocked three times, hard, on the door. Each time, Ayako heard an ear-splitting creak, and on the final knock, the door fell off its hinges. A musty smell of decay reached their nostrils and the duo recoiled from the sight and stench. The carpet, which appeared to have once been cream or brown, was almost entirely green or black, and the walls were covered in disgusting stains, seemingly nicotine stains that bacteria had latched onto. The ceiling was a mine of cobwebs. Obviously, this flat was not inhabited – or if it was, it would be severely disturbing.

'I think this is a case of years, never mind days,' Ayako gasped.

'Do you reckon he's dead?' Houshou whispered. 'You know, everyone here is senile. It's possible that no one noticed, because like you said, he hasn't got anyone left.'

'I don't know, but I don't really fancy going in to have a look,' Ayako replied, holding her nose.

Houshou grimaced. 'I think we're going to have to,' he said reluctantly. 'Naru would kill us if we said we hadn't gone in and checked. Come on, we'll go in together.'

He kept one hand firmly clamped over his nose and extended the other to Ayako. She almost shook her head in disbelief – what a time for him to turn into Prince Charming! Still, a part of her that she didn't really want to acknowledge told her not to miss the opportunity and she placed her hand in his. She thought she felt a little shiver when she did, but she told herself not to be stupid.

Slowly, they advanced into the dilapidated flat. The door crumpled under their feet and a horrible mist rose up from whatever was draped over the carpet. They glanced around the flat and saw that there were two doors – one leading into a kitchen, and the other into a bedroom.

The kitchen wasn't so bad because it had wooden flooring, but Ayako almost threw up when she glanced into the sink and saw a nest of bugs. The contents of the fridge didn't even bear thinking about. Thankfully, they didn't need to investigate anything further in there, so tentatively the pair made their way to the bedroom. This room was worst of all; Houshou had to brush away a huge cobweb with his sleeve just to gain access. The bed was a hideous sight – part of the quilt had been eaten away by insects and Ayako swore she saw a _huge _spider scurrying along the skirting board. The wardrobe looked like it stood less of a chance than the poor door had had, but luckily one of its doors was open, and she realised that it was full of clothes – none of them wearable, but there nonetheless.

'Do you think he was murdered or something?' Houshou asked.

'We'd probably be able to smell something, and there'd be signs,' Ayako replied. 'I don't think so – it looks like he just upped and left.'

'I think that's what we should be doing right now,' Houshou answered. 'We've seen enough. He's not here.'

Ayako nodded. They were on their way out of the flat when a huge rat ran across the floor, out of the kitchen onto the landing. Ayako shrieked and in the process let go of her nose and flew backwards, straight into Houshou's arms.

Awkwardly he pulled her up and managed to get the two of them, unscathed, out into the stairwell outside the flat. She noticed that it was a long time before he let go of her shoulders.

OOOOO

John stared at the man in disbelief. 'So you're absolutely _positive _that you have _no _burial records?'

'You mean cremation records?' the curator of the graveyard asked. John winced – he hadn't wanted to say cremation because it hadn't been necessary.

'Well, cremation records then,' he said dismissively. 'You're sure you don't have _anything _relating to Okabe Nayuko here?'

'I'm positive there's nothing,' said the curator. John would have liked to call him unhelpful but he knew it was just his own desperation that was clouding his mind. 'Have you tried other crematoriums around the city?' the man suggested.

'Yes,' Yasuhara put in. 'This is the last one we've come to.'

The man looked uncomfortable. John knew it probably looked suspicious – two people looking for the burial place of an ostensibly random girl. 'Are you sure she was buried in Shibuya?' he asked.

John glanced at Yasuhara. 'It's unlikely,' the student said. 'Her entire family comes from Shibuya.'

'Well, I'm sorry I couldn't help you,' the man said. 'I hope you find her. It must be very hard, not to be able to pay your respects properly.'

John felt like crying out when he heard this but instead he just nodded to the man and left, distressed and dejected. Yasuhara, too, had plunged himself deep into a reverie and, thankfully, did not expect conversation. The fact that they had checked _every _crematorium in Shibuya meant that Okabe Nayuko had either been buried privately or not at all.

'Do you reckon her father kept her body?' Yasuhara asked at last.

'It looks that way, I'm afraid,' John sighed.

'It's a bit like _Psycho_,' Yasuhara remarked, shuddering.

'Sorry?' John blinked.

'_Psycho_ – you know the horror film where the man keeps his mother's corpse?' Yasuhara clarified. John felt a stab of guilt. The boy obviously wished he hadn't said anything.

'Umm, it rings a bell,' John replied. Thinking about it, he had heard of the film but he had no idea what it was about. Truthfully he didn't watch horror films. Some of them, like psychological thrillers, were probably extremely good but most of them exploited belief in superstition and the occult. John was sure that God would not approve of him spending his time sifting through them, or his money on going to the cinema when it could go to a good cause.

'What do you think Naru is going to say about this?' Yasuhara continued. 'Do you reckon he'll be angry?'

John really didn't want to talk about this but he forced his brain to put an answer together. 'No, I don't,' he replied. 'I think he'll be pleased.'

OOOOO

The police had not been co-operative at all. They clearly didn't like anyone else 'meddling' in their affairs and the fact that three quarters of them were firmly against the supernatural having a part in anything didn't help matters in the slightest. They had scorned Mai and Masako when they had been introduced as mediums although it was hard to tell whether that was because they were so young or if they would have been like that towards psychics of any age. However, a few of them seemed to sense the hostility of Lin's offended Shiki because they looked at him with nervous, almost fearful expressions.

'We would like to see the records for the death of Okabe Nayuko,' Lin repeated.

'Are you private investigators?' the secretary asked.

'We have been hired to investigate a case of arson and we believe that it is linked to several other cases beginning with this girl's death,' Lin replied idly, producing a document that Mai didn't even know he had brought with him. On it was undoubtedly the signature of the policeman who had reluctantly agreed to allow SPR to take part in the investigation.

The secretary glanced over the page and a frown passed over her features. 'All right, I suppose so,' she sighed and stood up to go into a back room. Mai smiled wryly. When the policeman had agreed to SPR's participation, the idea that it would become this serious had probably never entered his head. Mai hoped that they would be able to gain something from this trip because otherwise, the police would be very suspicious.

The young woman returned and slammed an envelope down on the counter in front of them. 'You mustn't take it out of this building,' she recited warningly.

Lin, Mai and Masako made their way over to a small area comprising two coffee tables and about ten chairs. 'Shouldn't they take cameras and things away from us?' Masako whispered to Mai.

'Probably,' Mai answered. 'But they can see us, I guess.'

'I think it's down to inefficiency,' Masako concluded. Mai nodded in acquiescence; one could only be so optimistic about the police.

Lin opened the file and set it down on the table in front of the two girls, one of them either side of him. It probably made a bizarre picture to someone who could see everything: a man, two young women and a big group of Shiki. On the first page there was a photograph of Nayuko, and her details: her dates of birth and death, the names of her mother and father and cause of death: fire. Upon further investigation into the file, the cause of death was simply that. She had perished in the flames; the forensic department hadn't found any evidence of foul play.

'Is it possible that it was just a terrible accident?' Mai asked.

'I'm not sure,' Lin murmured. He flicked through the other pages. 'Hang on, read this. She died at the house of the man who painted that portrait.'

Mai and Masako immediately crowded around the file, curiosity piqued. Letting their eyes wander down the page, they discovered that the painter had been in the house at the time of the fire.

'Oh my _God_,' Masako whispered. 'He saved his paintings instead of the girl? Was he prosecuted? Can you be prosecuted for that?'

'No, he wasn't, and I don't know,' Lin said gravely. 'He wasn't prosecuted because he committed suicide.'

'I'm not surprised,' Masako said softly. 'I'm sure he didn't mean to leave the girl, but artists are so attached to their work...'

'It's strange that the spirit is of the little girl, and not the man, then, because I doubt that the man is at peace,' Mai mused sadly.

Lin frowned. 'It's possible that if the girl wasn't buried, then she can't be at peace. Even if the man isn't at peace, _he _has no reason to haunt anyone or take revenge. I think we need to get back to base.'

After Mai had made a few notes from the police file, they returned it to the glum secretary and exited the building, back into the immense heat. Walking alongside a brooding Lin, Mai turned to talk to Masako when she realised that the other girl was no longer next to her. She turned around and saw Masako standing, listless, a few feet away.

'Masako-san,' Mai called, 'what's the matter? Are you all right?'

When the medium didn't reply, Mai moved towards her, thinking she was having a vision. However, the vacant look in Masako's eyes wasn't the one that she normally got when she was seeing something supernatural. As Mai contemplated what the problem was, Masako let out a weak sigh and fainted right in front of her.

**End of Chapter 4**

Author's Note:_ I hope there aren't any gaping errors of continuity in this chapter. Next chapter, we'll find out more about what happened to Nayuko and meet some people involved. There is one more chapter after that in which the case is resolved. More romance is coming up next chapter too! _

_Please note that the only reason for Masako's collapse is dehydration and heat exhaustion – it's not a plot point, it's just a plot device! The reason I'm saying that is in case people think it's really important, when it isn't._

_Hope you enjoyed this chapter!_


	5. Heatwave

Author's Notes: _Thank you for the reviews and thanks to all who have put this story, or me, on their favourites lists – it would be nice to hear from you, too! _

_We only have one more chapter left after this one but here comes the action! Specifically, the non-case action, which is always better, I think you'll agree. This chapter is slightly depressing, but the next (and last) one will be a lot happier. Also, this is a lot longer than I expected. Woo! There will be more notes at the end of this chapter. Bonne lecture!_

**Picture Perfect**

**Chapter 5**

**Heatwave**

The phone rang and Chiaki did her best to make sure she didn't show her discomfort as she rushed across to answer it. She glanced over at Naru, who was still staring at his computer screen. She hadn't seen him actually move, so either he managed to do it only when her back was turned, or he was scrolling down his page telepathically – or, better still, he wasn't reading anything at all. He had only spoken twice, both times to ask for tea.

'Hello?' she said as she picked up the receiver.

'Hey, Chiaki-chan, it's me,' Mai's warm voice answered and Chiaki relaxed. 'Have you heard from the others?'

'Yeah, Bou-san and Miko-san are still looking for the girl's father and John-san and Yasu-chan haven't managed to find a burial site. How are things there?' Chiaki noticed that Naru slowly, almost imperceptibly, shifted in his chair and turned his piercing gaze onto her. She quickly stared down at the numbers on the phone.

'Well, we're doing okay – we've found out that the girl died in the painter's house,' Mai explained. 'The painter saved his paintings, was too late for the girl, and later killed himself.'

Chiaki gasped. Naru frowned.

'Oh my God, that's awful,' Chiaki whispered into the phone.

'I know,' Mai sighed. 'The poor man – I don't think he was being malicious. Even so, you've got to be pretty self-absorbed to _forget _that there's a little girl there as well as your precious art. I feel so sorry for her parents... wherever they are.' She paused. 'But I rang you to tell you that we're taking Masako-san to the hospital.'

'_What_?' Chiaki exclaimed.

'Yeah, she fainted. The paramedics said it's just heat exhaustion. She didn't have enough to drink.'

'Sure,' Chiaki said, feeling numb – she had started to panic when Mai had said Masako was in hospital, and it was taking a while for her to realise that it was going to be okay. 'Do you... umm – do you need someone to come there?'

'No, no, it's all right,' Mai assured her. 'Lin-san and I will deal with it just fine. I just wanted to let you know.'

'Yeah, thanks. I'll tell Naru. See you later.'

Wordlessly, Chiaki sat down. She had decided to try to imitate Mai's confidence and wait for Naru to ask her what the phone call was about. She knew he would have to, sooner or later. Chiaki pointedly fixed her attention on her laptop and typed in the address of a news website in the hope of finding something that would genuinely interest her, because she was an awful actress and Naru would certainly know if she was faking it.

'Kasai-san, I would appreciate it if you would inform me of the content of phone calls intended for me,' Naru said coldly after a few minutes.

'She didn't ask to speak to you,' Chiaki said before she could stop herself.

Naru raised one eyebrow. 'Did you not think it prudent to inform me of whatever it was she said, in any case?'

Chiaki decided she had no choice but to run with it – backing out would make her look even more stupid. 'Well, I figured you would have asked if you wanted to know, and besides, she said nothing that would directly affect you – they're still working and you'll find out later.'

'Did I not ask for you to tell me?' Naru snapped.

'No, you didn't. You said you'd appreciate it if I'd inform you of phone calls intended for you. It wasn't intended for you. She didn't ask to speak to you. What you should have said if you wanted to know is, "What did she say?" But you didn't.'

Chiaki expected him to tell her to get out, but he didn't do that either. He simply stared at her for a long time and then turned back to the computer. Chiaki was half relieved, but half disappointed. At least if he told her to get out he would be speaking at all.

All of a sudden he picked up his phone and dialled a number. Chiaki held her breath as he waited for an answer. When none came, he scowled and put the phone back down; she could have sworn she heard him mutter something that sounded like the word '_hosupiteru_' but without the vowels, but she couldn't be certain. He glared at the phone for a few more seconds before glancing up at Chiaki again.

'Kasai-san,' he said slowly, 'what did Mai say?'

Chiaki was too overjoyed with this triumph to be annoyed that he called Mai by her first name only. 'She said,' she replied cheerfully, 'that they found out that Nayuko died in a fire in the home of the man who painted her portrait. He killed himself because he saved his work instead of her... Oh, and Masako-san is in hospital with dehydration.'

Naru listened to this with a blank expression and then nodded. Seconds later he was looking back at his computer. Chiaki sighed inwardly and looked at her own, deciding to play some sort of game to pass the time.

'Thank you, Kasai-san.'

OOOOO

'Dehydration,' Mai repeated for the tenth time. 'I just can't believe it – surely she'd have said something? Said that she was too hot?'

'I would have thought so,' Lin mused, sitting next to her in the waiting room. 'But then again, we were all too hot. Hara-san is used to having her needs waited on, that is, someone telling her to drink, so I suppose she wouldn't have realised she needed to.'

'She can't be _that _sheltered,' Mai protested. 'Any moron would ask for some water.'

'Hara-san doesn't drink water, she drinks tea,' Lin pointed out.

Mai smiled knowingly. 'Yeah, I guess you're right,' she acquiesced. 'So, we just have to wait here until she wakes up and the doctors decide she hasn't got a fever?' she said on a sigh.

'Indeed, unless you wish to go to the cafeteria,' Lin suggested.

The redhead frowned in surprise. She didn't think Lin did that sort of thing, and she certainly wouldn't have expected him to consider _hospital _food, which was renowned for its unpleasantness, but she wasn't going to complain. Imposing as he was, anything was better than sitting in a stuffy waiting room. It was full of old people waiting to be seen about minute problems that they were taking too seriously, and couples with bratty toddlers. In general Mai loved children, but the ones in hospital waiting rooms were invariably the annoying, ill-behaved ones. Lin appeared to have the same opinion, because he was watching a particularly aggravating child hitting his rattle against his mother's knee with a disgusted expression – although he probably didn't like any children.

'All right then,' she agreed. 'Let's go and see if they have anything edible.'

Lin responded with a small smile and they stood up. She followed him through the corridors, staring at his back, and wondered how he knew where he was going before she spotted the small signs on the walls. He walked alarmingly fast. She practically had to jog to keep up.

When they got there, Mai surveyed the choices. They had some rather unappetising soups, lumpy mince and potato, and the safe option: sandwiches with various fillings. 'Chicken salad and an iced tea, please,' she said brightly to the woman behind the counter.

She reached into the bag she had slung across her body and pulled out some money to pay for it, but when she looked up, she heard the ringing sound of the till and saw Lin holding the sandwich, bottle and glass out to her with an amused expression on his face. Put out, she pulled herself together, smiled and offered him the bank note. He shook his head.

'But – you can't pay for mine,' Mai stammered.

'Yes, I can,' Lin smiled, and walked over to the other side of the room to find a seat, without another word. Mai frowned, blinked and stared at the floor to collect her thoughts. Her first notion had been to make sure she paid for herself, because she had always been independent and didn't like to feel reliant on other people, or as if they pitied her because she was an orphan. But she told herself to stop being stupid. She highly doubted that Lin would buy her lunch because of _that_. He wasn't that type of person – he knew she wouldn't like it. Besides, he couldn't have thought she couldn't afford it – it was only a sandwich and drink, for goodness' sake.

'Mai, you're thinking about this too much,' she muttered to herself, before hurrying over to join Lin at a table by the window. He raised an eyebrow at her as she sat down and she gave him what she hoped was a natural smile that showed she was at ease. 'Thank you,' she said quietly. Lin simply nodded.

'What did Kasai-san say?' he asked.

'Oh, nothing much – she asked if we wanted someone to come to the hospital, but I said we were fine,' Mai said dismissively. 'I wonder how she's dealing with Naru.'

Lin sighed somewhat exasperatedly. When she looked at him, shocked, he said, 'Kasai-san is quite sensitive and Naru doesn't appreciate sensitivity.'

Mai was suddenly all too aware that her sandwich didn't have tomato on it. 'Well, she knows that, and she wanted to stay,' she replied, averting her gaze from his. 'Besides, all he has to do is speak to her and she's happy. That said, the slightest annoyed comment and she thinks she's _totally _messed up.' She shrugged. 'I like Chiaki-chan. She tries to see the best in people.' Mai was rather surprised. She hadn't realised that Lin was so perceptive, or that he actually bothered to use his perception on the members of SPR.

'Don't you, too?' Lin asked with a bemused expression.

'Yeah, but I'm bad at it,' Mai laughed. 'I try to be really optimistic, but, you know... When I first met Naru I was so annoyed with him because he was such a jerk. I still get annoyed with him when he goes around shouting for tea. Chiaki-chan is just nice to everyone. I mean, she gets insecure and has her moments, but in general, she's much more tolerant of Naru than I am.'

Lin almost snorted. 'Perhaps that is simply because she is shy, or not as confident as you,' he suggested. 'You're not intolerant. He _is _a jerk.'

Mai burst out laughing.

'What?' Lin asked, perplexed.

'You saying "jerk". It just doesn't go,' Mai giggled. 'It's not the type of thing you say.'

Lin smirked. 'I'm just repeating what you said, Taniyama-san,' he replied. 'How would you expect me to say it?' he asked, not bad-temperedly.

'Oh, I don't know...' Mai thought for a moment. 'Obnoxious, petulant, self-important adolescent,' she said in a measured tone that she hoped mirrored Lin's. He almost choked on the mouthful of sandwich that he had just eaten and at first she thought it was because he was angry, but then she realised he was laughing, in a manner of speaking, and she started laughing too.

'I didn't realise you were so aware of my speech habits, Taniyama-san,' Lin said when he could speak. 'That was quite accurate.'

Mai shrugged her shoulders. 'Well, you don't say much, so it's easy to pick up what you _do _say,' she answered. 'Besides, you have a distinctive voice.'

Lin raised one eyebrow. 'Oh, really?' he said lightly.

'Yeah, it's sort of, like, high and low at the same time,' Mai attempted to explain.

The other eyebrow joined it. 'You realise, don't you, that that does not make a lot of sense. How can it be similar to high and similar to low, at the same time?'

Mai bit her lip, half out of embarrassment and half to stop her laughing. 'I mean that you have a deep voice, but it's doesn't sound like deep voices normally do. It's not all drawn and drawly and creepy.'

'I should hope not,' Lin replied, 'I have spent years perfecting its unique nature.'

Mai frowned in confusion and gaped at him. Surely he wasn't _putting it on_? It was only when he smirked into his drink that she realised both that he was making fun of her and that she probably looked ridiculous. She narrowed her eyes but any menace she had intended to convey was cancelled out by her irrepressible smile. 'That's not funny, Lin-san,' she said in what she hoped was a scolding tone. 'You're taking advantage of my gullible nature.'

'You wound me, Taniyama-san,' Lin retorted mockingly. 'This is clearly character defamation...'

'No one is here to hear it,' Mai countered. 'Therefore it cannot be character defamation unless I go to the papers and the papers would say that they don't know who you are and they only print stories about famous people and _so _no one would know about it because the papers wouldn't print it.'

Lin started shaking his head with a small smile on his face and Mai flushed.

'Okay, it was just a joke, wasn't it?' she asked no one in particular. 'I always do that. I take everything so seriously and try to come up with something really clever, and then everyone forgets that in the first place it was supposed to be funny...! Ugh, I fail.'

'You don't,' Lin protested. 'If you do, as you say, always do that, then it is quite an endearing habit.'

Mai did not want to think that she had misheard that and so she just smiled in reply. She realised that she had probably laughed more in this short conversation than in the entire time she had ever spent talking to Naru in her life. She hadn't realised that Lin was actually quite amusing behind that taciturn exterior. True, he hadn't said much today either, just short, whimsical responses, and nothing personal, but it had made her laugh and she felt like she needed to laugh more.

She was contemplating what to say next, when she saw Lin look up and noticed that a nurse was standing by their table. She went red again – she hadn't even been aware of the nurse's presence.

'Lin-san and Mai-san?' the nurse said uncertainly. 'Umm, a Hara Masako is requesting you.'

They both nodded and the nurse went away. Mai hurriedly wolfed down the remainder of her sandwich while still trying to look dignified, downed the rest of her iced tea and stood up to follow Lin out of the cafeteria. She noticed only then that it had been air conditioned; as they went through the corridors, the air became hotter, but she imagined it would be all right in the wards.

'Don't you find it weird that everyone only calls you by your family name?' Mai asked suddenly.

Lin frowned. 'No, not really – doesn't everyone call each other by their family name?'

'I mean in SPR,' Mai replied. 'There's Naru-chan, Bou-san, Miko-san, John-kun, Yasu-kun, Chiaki-chan, Masako-san... I mean, John-kun calls everyone by their family name but that doesn't really count. Don't you feel left out?' Mai asked good-naturedly.

Lin's eyebrows went up again. 'I can't say I've ever really thought about it,' he confessed. 'But no, I don't think so. After all, I don't exactly ingratiate myself.'

'But it's still really sly,' Mai protested.

'It's what?' Lin blinked.

'Sly,' Mai repeated slowly.

'Sneaky?' Lin asked, and she wondered if he was making fun of her or not. She decided that he was, but he also _truly _didn't know what she meant.

'Oh, it's just something people say at school,' she said sheepishly. 'It doesn't mean sneaky, it means... mean.' She laughed when she heard that sentence again in her head and saw that Lin had smirked as well. 'It means deliberately unfair. Because it is, really – you always get all the crap. I even only got this job because you ended up immobile because of me.'

'That's true,' Lin conceded.

'They should make a nickname for you, too,' Mai went on.

Lin pulled a face. 'I'm not too keen on nicknames,' he replied. 'But if you feel so strongly about it, you can call me Koujo-san instead – if you wish.'

Mai clenched her teeth firmly to stop her jaw dropping. 'Only if you call me Mai-san,' she managed to articulate.

'Deal,' Lin said with a smirk.

Gobsmacked, Mai followed him into the ward that Masako was in (which was, in fact, air-conditioned). What a weird day! She had to admit that she would have had to think for a few seconds if someone had asked her what Lin's given name was. She wondered how Koujo-san would sound when she spoke it. But she couldn't think about it for too long, because she spotted Masako, sitting up weakly in the bed where they had left her.

'Where did you go?' the medium demanded as soon as they reached the bed.

'We went to the cafeteria while we were waiting,' Lin explained.

Masako's violet gaze travelled between the two of them and a slight crease appeared on her brow. 'I'm sorry about before,' she said finally, 'I should have had more to drink.'

'Don't worry about it, Masako-san,' Mai said quickly. 'Everyone's really hot and you were wearing a kimono for most of the time we've been here. It's not your fault.'

Masako smiled faintly. 'Thank you, Mai-san,' she said gratefully. 'I think I'm okay now. Would you ask them to let me out, please, Lin-san?'

Lin nodded. 'We'll ensure you drink enough water,' he said firmly.

Ten minutes later, Lin, Mai and Masako were making their way across the hospital car park, when Mai suddenly remembered something. She turned to the other two with a start. 'Hang on – you know that the painter of _The Lonely Girl _wasn't prosecuted because he committed suicide? He was still tried, wasn't he? He just wasn't _sentenced_.'

'Yeah, I think so,' Masako said slowly. 'I think he was tried, yes, you're right.'

'Can we go back to the police station?' Mai asked Lin apologetically. 'I need to check something.'

Lin looked at her quizzically then nodded. Within ten minutes, after a fairly silent car journey, they had returned to the police station, had another conversation with the unwelcoming secretary, and were once again sitting in the meeting area with the file.

'I'd like to check the case proceedings,' Mai explained as she rifled through the pages. 'We didn't look because it was obvious that nothing came of it... But I'd like to see what happened.'

She checked through the details of the case. 'Morita Jouta, the artist, had been charged with causing the girl's death,' Mai read to the others. 'The girls' parents, specifically her father, wanted him to go to prison for murder or manslaughter, but his lawyer was pushing for a lesser conviction based on the fact that he had been temporarily out of it and that he _had _tried to save the girl... He said that Morita saw that the girl was already dead and then saved his paintings instead of removing the body. The girl's father insisted that Nayuko had been alive at the time because he heard her screaming right up until the artist emerged with the paintings.' She paused, and scanned the rest of the text. 'The father tried to persuade the jury to convict him immediately but they decided to take another day to look over the evidence... During that day, Morita Jouta killed himself. It appears the father probably blamed the jury for the fact that justice was never won for his child.'

'But then why take it out on random people?' Masako asked incredulously. 'Why put the spirit of the girl into the painting and burn down the houses of people who had nothing to do with it, who didn't deserve it?'

Mai looked at the list of names of people on the jury. 'Hirata...' She read the first one. 'Hirata was the name of the first owner of the painting!'

'Hirata Tsurugi?' Masako gasped.

'No, it's not Tsurugi... and Kogawa! That's the most recent one, but the name is different...' Mai shook her head in disbelief. 'I don't believe it. I think... This is what I dreamed. I heard their names... The owners of the painting... were the children of the members of the jury that dealt with the case of the girl's death.'

Masako clapped her hand to her mouth and Lin whistled softly. 'Well done, Mai-san,' he whispered, a name change that she didn't miss, and when she smiled it was only partly out of gratitude for the compliment. 'We have to find out how exactly the spirit is latching on to these people... We need to go to the place where she died.'

OOOOO

John coughed nervously as he and Yasuhara stood in front of the door. It was a rusty red colour that reminded him of blood and wasn't reassuring at all. 'The poor woman – what if she's moved on, and because of us, she gets upset again?'

Yasuhara sighed. 'It'll be alright,' he assured the exorcist. 'Besides, you're a priest. It's a good thing you've got that garb on – she'll know you're a priest. It'll be comforting, even if she isn't a Christian.'

'That's good, I suppose,' John agreed. 'Okay, go on.'

The bookish student stepped forward and knocked on the door of Okabe Nayuko's mother. He stood back respectfully, and smiled in a perfectly professional manner when a middle-aged woman opened the door. To John's surprise, he heard the sound of children behind her. She smiled questioningly at them.

'Hello, can I help you?' the woman asked kindly.

'Are you Mrs Okabe?' Yasuhara asked.

The woman's demeanour became wary. 'I haven't been Okabe for years,' she said suspiciously. 'What is it you want? If it's about my husband, I haven't seen him for years.'

'It's about your daughter, actually,' Yasuhara replied in his kindest voice. 'May we come in?'

'Ayumi?' the woman asked, horrified. 'What has she done? She isn't in any kind of trouble, is she?'

John and Yasuhara exchanged glances. 'No, umm, we'd like to talk about Nayuko, actually,' Yasuhara explained.

The woman turned pale and took a step backwards, and John feared she was going to faint, but then her eyes took on a steely glint and her mouth set in a firm line. 'I suppose you had better come in, but I don't want you to talk about it in front of the children, okay?' she warned, and stepped aside for them to enter the house. John and Yasuhara, trying not to show their increasing discomfort, took their shoes off and followed the woman through the house. It was quite a big house in the suburbs, and impeccably neat, apart from a painting set that was spread on mats on the floor. Mrs Okabe – who had still not revealed her new name – took them into a conservatory overlooking a garden filled with children's toys. John felt a pang of sadness. She had obviously spoiled her younger children to surround herself with a mother's love. He was glad she had found happiness.

'I'm Osamu Yasuhara, and this is John Brown,' Yasuhara said by way of introduction. 'Firstly, we would like to offer our condolences. We are too young to imagine what you must have gone through but we wish for you to understand that we know this is an awful experience.'

Nayuko's mother did not respond to this, she simply nodded briefly. 'My name is Nara Kaede,' she said as she sat down in a wicker chair to stare at them. 'After my daughter Nayuko died I remarried. My husband and I have three children and we are happy. I hope this isn't going to affect us...'

'No, it shouldn't, Nara-san, and it certainly won't affect your children,' John said quickly. 'But we need to ask you a few questions about Nayuko.'

Kaede's knuckles went white. 'What? I thought this was all over,' she stammered.

John sighed. 'We are... paranormal investigators,' he explained tentatively. 'You remember that a portrait was painted of Nayuko?'

'Yes,' Kaede replied, one hand over her mouth.

'It's been causing some... problems,' John said quietly. 'We wanted to know where your daughter was buried, so we could... pay our respects, and bless her grave.'

'What sort of problems?' Kaede demanded.

John glanced nervously at Yasuhara. 'There have been a number of fires connected with the painting,' he said reluctantly. 'The houses of the last few owners have all been gutted by fire, but the painting has remained unharmed. We believe that your daughter's spirit is attached to the painting, perhaps because she cannot rest in peace, and so we would like to go to our grave, and attempt to make contact with her spirit, to ensure she gets to heaven safely.'

Yasuhara, who was closest to Kaede, put his hand on her arm. Tears were now running down her cheeks. 'We are extremely sorry, Nara-san,' he said in a low voice. 'We know this must be awful for you and we want to help you in any way we can. Your children do not need to be involved and if you need any guidance... John is a priest.'

Kaede nodded gratefully towards John. She let out a strange choking sound and then took a deep breath. 'I knew it was a bad idea,' she said tearfully. 'My ex-husband... Nayuko's father... He wouldn't let me bury her. I wanted to have her buried _properly_, even though...' She paused. 'Because that's how it's supposed to be done. I wouldn't let someone ruin that for her. But he took her ashes. At first he was kind about it, then... He told me that he would ruin me if I didn't let him have them. He would say that he was mistaken and the death was my fault. I couldn't bear that. So I let him have them. He was her father, after all.'

It took a few moments for this to sink in. 'You mean to say that your daughter has not been buried?' Yasuhara articulated the question that John was trying to phrase.

'Yes,' Kaede replied. 'I had a bad feeling about it... My poor Nayuko...' She started crying again and Yasuhara, ever resourceful, pulled a tissue out of his pocket.

'Do you know where your husband is? Does he have the ashes with him?' John asked kindly.

'I think he kept them, yes,' Kaede nodded. 'I don't know where he is... He had a flat in the neighbourhood somewhere, but we went to see him a few years ago, out of courtesy, and he wasn't there. I remember him saying he wanted revenge... He would go to the house... the house where she died.'

John gulped. They had heard from Ayako and Houshou that the man wasn't, in fact, in his flat. Now they had discovered that he had run off with his daughter's ashes. If they hadn't been blessed, and she hadn't received the proper burial rites, then it was entirely possible, and extremely likely, that her spirit was not at peace. The lifelike appearance of the painting now took on a far more sinister meaning.

'Thank you very much, Nara-san,' he said gently. 'You have been very helpful. I am sure that this will help ensure that your daughter rests in peace as she deserves to.' They stood up. 'We will keep you informed of our investigation. Would you like me to get your husband – is he here?'

'No, no, don't tell him, I don't want him to know,' Kaede said quickly. 'He knows what happened but I wouldn't want him to think that it would affect our own children. And he would think that.'

The two young men nodded in comprehension. 'Of course. Thank you, Nara-san. We will keep in touch,' John said, and reached down to squeeze her hand.

They left the house with a layer of sadness over them both. As they were walking along the street, Yasuhara said gravely, 'I'll tell Miko-san and Bou-san.'

John nodded. 'This is getting to be really creepy. I hope we can give that little girl a peaceful passage,' he said sadly.

OOOOO

'Naru,' Chiaki ventured, 'may I ask why we have not attempted an exorcism?'

Naru sighed and massaged his temples. 'An exorcism would be useless until we knew the circumstances of the girl's death. If she was happily buried then an exorcism alone wouldn't work and would be a waste, so we waited until we knew.'

'Ah,' Chiaki said, in order to say _something_. 'I can't believe... Everything has turned so horrible. It looks like that poor man just couldn't deal with his grief.'

'Is there a way to deal with grief? What do you suggest?' Naru asked.

Chiaki was surprised, to say the least, and happy that he was engaging in conversation, but when she looked up at him she felt her insides go cold. He was looking at her with an almost menacing expression, as though presenting a dark challenge. His fists were clenched and he looked even paler than usual. He seemed to be surrounded by melancholy. She wondered why he was taking it personally. Naru never took anything personally.

She knew one thing: she had to phrase this carefully. 'I don't pretend to know anything about it...' she began.

'Good,' Naru interjected.

'And I know there are many different ways to deal with losing a loved one. I don't think there should be a set way. Different things work for different people. But I think the best thing would be to know that the spirit of the person was happy... and not burying the remains is going against that. I couldn't rest until the child was buried. I could understand a need for revenge if the remains hadn't been found... But he has them. And he's not burying them. And in my opinion, that's defiling his child more than even the painter did. It's going against her memory. It's not what she would have wanted – she would have wanted to rest in peace, and wanted him to try to be happy – like her mother is. Now he is destroying his chance of happiness, her chance of peace, and innocent lives.'

Naru inhaled extremely slowly. 'Yes, I agree with you, Kasai-san,' he said quietly. 'I thought you were going to say something profoundly stupid. That was simply profound.'

Shocked, Chiaki averted her gaze. She wasn't even happy that Naru had complimented her; she just felt a deep sadness in her chest. She wanted this case to be over as soon as possible.

OOOOO

Ayako and Houshou arrived at the house at the same time as the rest of SPR. It had been completely ruined by the fire and no one had tried to redevelop it. Part of the roof was completely gone and there were large black stains on the building's facade. Ayako shivered when she saw it.

'I feel a presence here,' Masako was saying. 'But it's sort of... detached.'

'That makes sense,' Mai answered her.

Ayako surveyed her other colleagues. Lin looked thoughtful. John looked sad and Yasuhara stunned. Chiaki looked guilty and Naru just looked... well, like Naru. They all seemed to look to her and Houshou, undoubtedly because they had been the ones assigned to deal with the girl's father, and Ayako felt grateful for this. It was strange – in a case where no one's powers had been required as yet, rather than resorting to hierarchy, everyone had been equalised. Even now that Naru was here, this was still their responsibility.

Houshou knocked on the door and Ayako smiled faintly at the memory of what had happened last time. _This _time, however, the door was opened by a man who befitted the appearance of his decrepit old flat. Unshaven and stinking to high heaven, he fixed a drunken glare on Ayako and Houshou and then noticed the group gathered behind them, and seemed to start to panic.

'What do you want?' he exclaimed. 'Why are there so many of you? Are you the police? Have you come to turf me out? Redevelopment? You've no right!'

Ayako contemplated pretending that they were redevelopers and telling the man that in fact, the property wasn't officially his and they had every right to turf him out. Instead she said, 'Okabe-san, we are Shibuya Psychic Research and we have reason to believe that there is a spirit attached to your house. We'd just like to come in and have a look around, and then we'll go.'

Okabe narrowed his eyes at her. 'Shibuya Psychic Research? Never heard of you,' he spat.

'That's not surprising – we're not a commercial company,' Ayako said patiently.

'You just want to look around the house? You don't want to get rid of me?' the man asked guardedly.

'No, of course we don't want to get rid of you,' Ayako assured him.

'What will you do if there is a spirit in the house?' he challenged suddenly. He was more lucid and intelligent than she had first thought – but then, she got the idea that he had become twisted, and twisted people were often very intelligent.

'We have a medium with us... it's just for research,' Ayako improvised. 'We're studying the nature of spirits. Our medium sensed a spirit around your house that was different to the ones we have studied already.'

'What type of spirit is it?' Okabe demanded.

'We don't know. That's why we'd like to come in,' Ayako said, beginning to lose patience now.

The man held onto the door with a sinewy hand and she expected him to slam it in her face, but instead, he finally relented. 'All right then. You can look around my house. But I don't want you bringing any of your shit in. Cameras or anything like that – you got me?'

'Perfectly, Sir.' Ayako smiled sweetly. 'We are extremely grateful.'

Shooting a triumphant glance back at the rest of SPR, Ayako entered the house and heard the others follow her. The kitchen appeared to be unusable, but the living room was habitable at least. There was a small television set and two leather couches covered in cigarette burns. There were several used ashtrays, adult magazines and dated newspapers littering the floor, but it didn't look too bad. The group traipsed through into the back room, which was also largely defunct, but which sported a small dining table with two chairs. Ayako looked at Masako, as did everyone else. The medium shook her head.

Next the group made its way carefully up the stairs. There was no banister and Ayako heard a 'whoops!' from behind her. She wondered if it was Mai or Chiaki – or maybe even Masako. The young psychic looked increasingly anxious as they reached the second floor of the house. One of the doors was boarded up – this probably led through to the room without a roof. Another revealed an unmade bed. Expecting to find herself at the bottom of Tissue Mountain if she went in there, given the appearance of the man and the type of literature he kept in his living room, Ayako avoided it and turned to the last room, whose door was only ajar. This time, she stood back to let Masako in first.

Masako immediately froze as soon as she went into the room and Ayako heard a gasp. 'Oh my God,' Masako whispered. The members of SPR crowded around the door in order of height, smallest first, and were greeted by a sickening sight.

This room's roof had also been partially ruined, but wooden beams had been positioned in place of the tiles. Still, half of the floor was covered in buckets. The walls were completely black, suggesting it had been hit considerably by the blaze. But its furniture was the most pristine that the Miko had seen yet, if furniture was the word. The room was kitted out with a small table, a computer desk, a bookshelf and an easel. The easel was covered with a collage of pictures of Nayuko, and chillingly, resting on the top of it was a small urn.

Ayako's hand flew to Houshou's before she could stop it. She was going to pull it away, but he clasped it in his and squeezed it reassuringly, then laced his fingers through hers.

Masako turned around, her face deathly pale, and nodded towards Naru.

'Sir, I am the director of Shibuya Psychic Research,' Naru explained to Okabe, who had been loitering behind them. 'We have confirmed that there is, in fact, a spirit attached to your house. We would like your help to learn more about it. Are those pictures of your daughter?'

'Yes,' Okabe said defensively. 'She died in a fire in this very house.' He almost said it proudly.

'Are those her ashes?' Naru asked, pointing towards it.

'Yes,' Okabe replied. 'Well, not all of them.'

'Not all of them?' Naru repeated. Ayako, along with the others, stifled a gasp.

'Some of them are... elsewhere,' Okabe said evasively.

'Perhaps, Sir, you may wish to reunite the ashes? This separation may be what is causing the presence of your daughter's spirit,' Naru suggested. 'If her remains are in several places then she cannot rest in peace.'

'I want her here with me,' Okabe said coldly, 'and that is my decision.'

Even Naru looked somewhat disturbed. 'I respect that, Sir,' he said slowly. 'Out of curiosity... Have you done something similar with the rest of her ashes?' As he asked this, he gestured to the easel with the pictures.

Okabe smirked. It was very unpleasant. 'Yes, I suppose you could say that.'

Naru's gaze darkened. 'Thank you, that's all we needed to know,' he said. 'Come on,' he added to his employees.

Stunned and disgusted, the members of SPR followed their boss down the stairs, Ayako still holding Houshou's hand.

OOOOO

Mai hadn't found it difficult to get to sleep that night. She was absolutely exhausted and even the stifling heat of her tent couldn't keep sleep away. When they had returned to the base, Naru had ordered them all to get some rest and the investigation would continue in the morning. She heard Chiaki's irregular breathing as she drifted off, and was contemplating staying awake to talk to her friend, but her body made the decision for her.

Again she heard the voice she had heard in her first dream. This time she recognised it: Okabe.

'They know, darling,' he was saying. 'They're onto us. We have to step up the game, darling. If they continue, we won't be able to get our full revenge. That means they have to go too.'

The painting! Oh, God, the painting! Mai shot up with a jolt. She realised that even _Naru _had to have been tired – he had forgotten that they had the painting on the base with them and thus that it would be able to inflict its deadly curse on them.

Mai leapt out of her sleeping bag and pulled down the zip of the tent. She rushed out into the clearing—and saw that she was already too late.

**End of Chapter 5**

_First things first. The slang expressions and manners of speech that Mai uses in this chapter are in fact examples of real British teen slang. Mai probably does use slang, but I don't know what that would be so I have to use what I've heard, and I'm British._

_Secondly, to give credit where it's due, this story concerns a more human crime and this was suggested by an episode of 'Silent Witness' (a British crime drama), in which a man kills all the members of the jury that convicted him for something he didn't do._

_Like I said, the next chapter will be the last._

_Thanks for reading!_


	6. Ashes to Dust

Author's Note: _Last chapter! Thanks to everyone for reading. And happy birthday, Aki-nee. _

_Please note there are a couple of uses of strong language in this chapter. B__onne lecture et merci beaucoup pour votre intérêt! _

**Picture Perfect**

**Chapter 6**

**Ashes to Dust**

The tent was on fire. Mai didn't know how that was possible when the painting was in the police van nearby but she didn't stop to think. She quickly ducked back into her own tent, where there was a bottle of water, wrenched the lid off and threw it over the zip of Naru and Lin's tent, which she then pulled open with shaking hands. 'Wake up!' she shouted. 'Naru-chan, Koujo-san, wake up!'

Lin woke up before Naru did. He gazed around groggily before inhaling smoke and beginning to cough. Seeing Mai, he stood up and grabbed Naru, and together they hauled him out of the tent. Lin just had time to grab their laptops before the entire tent collapsed into a bundle of flames.

Unbelievably, Naru didn't wake up. Mai glanced down at him and saw he had dark shadows under his eyes. She turned away and stared in numb horror at the tent. She began to take deep breaths.

She felt Lin's hand on her shoulder and looked up at him. He smiled at her. 'You saved our lives, Mai-san,' he said softly. 'Thank you.'

Mai managed to smile back. 'No problem,' she whispered. 'I guess I've paid you back for that sprained ankle now,' she joked.

Lin laughed. He had a nice laugh. 'You didn't have to,' he replied. 'How did you know, though? Were you awake?'

She shook her head. 'No, I had a dream... I had a dream that Okabe was going to kill us. I just had a horrible foreboding feeling.' She shuddered. 'We'll have to dismantle that painting... I can't believe it doesn't reek of death.'

'It's burnt death, I doubt that smells particularly,' Lin mused.

'Still, how did nobody _notice_...?'

'I guess that it just looked like dust. After all, it was only ashes, wasn't it?' Lin said. Mai shivered, and he draped his dressing gown over her shoulders. She yawned and closed her eyes.

With a groan, Naru finally woke from his slumber, probably perturbed at lying on the hard ground. He scowled unbecomingly and looked around him, disgruntled, before his gaze settled on Lin and Mai, who were staring down at him placidly. 'What on earth is going on?' he demanded.

'The tent went on fire,' Lin explained bluntly. 'Mai saved us.'

Naru blinked. '_What_?' he asked. 'The tent went on fire? Very funny, Lin,' he snapped, and turned around. His mouth formed a perfect 'O' shape when he saw the remains of the tent. 'But—but the computers!' he protested.

'They were destroyed,' Lin deadpanned. When Naru turned around with a furious expression, he and Mai both started laughing. 'For goodness' sake, we saved them,' Lin remedied. 'Honestly, more worried about your precious work than yourself. It isn't healthy. We almost died.'

'Yes, well, we didn't,' Naru snarled. 'Where are we going to _sleep_?'

Lin looked at Mai and shook his head slightly. Mai muttered, 'Not a morning person,' and Lin chuckled.

Naru glared at them in annoyance. 'If you two would like to share with me what is so funny then I would be _eternally_ grateful,' he said sarcastically.

'We just think it's funny that you'll have to sleep on the floor, Naru-chan,' Mai answered, biting her lip to prevent a laugh escaping.

'The _floor_—! I'm not sleeping on the _floor_!' Naru exclaimed. 'We'll find somewhere – a hotel nearby, maybe.'

'We could have done that in the first place,' Mai put in.

'Are you paying the bills?' Naru snarled at her.

'I pay my own bills, on my own, perfectly fine,' Mai reminded him.

'Oh, well, good for you,' Naru growled. Lin snorted and Mai let out a muffled giggle. That soon turned into a hysterical laugh when she realised the severity of the situation. They could have died, and here they were bickering. It was completely bizarre, but then again, what was normal about SPR?

'If we're going to a hotel, then everyone should go,' Lin suggested. 'It was lucky that it was only our tent, and that Mai realised. The others could still be in danger if they slept here.'

Grumpily, Naru stood up and smoothed down his grey pyjamas before inspecting them for marks. Mai rolled her eyes at how nonchalant he was about the fact that he had just had a brush with death. Then again, for all she knew, he could be secretly panicking; he wasn't the type to show it. Lin seemed perfectly cool, but she knew that was sincere. At least he had had a small amount of worry about him upon learning of the situation, and at least he wasn't bemoaning his lack of a place to sleep.

There was a scuffling sound and Houshou emerged from his tent, stretching out. He looked at Mai, Lin and Naru, and then his gaze travelled to the destroyed tent, whereupon his jaw dropped. 'Bloody hell! What happened?' he exclaimed.

Naru sighed exasperatedly and Mai explained, 'Their tent caught fire. We're all going to stay in a hotel.'

Houshou blinked a few times and then realised his mouth was still open, and closed it. 'I'll... I'll go and wake the others,' he said, stunned.

Lin managed to arrange for them all to stay in a lodge for the night. No more accommodation was needed, it was decided, because they were likely to wrap up the case the next day... or, rather, later that day. While he was on the phone, everyone sat in stunned silence, apart from Houshou occasionally reminding them all that it was two o'clock in the morning. Ayako showed her maternal side and sat with Mai, Chiaki and Masako like a protective mother hen. John sat quietly alone, his head bowed, and Mai would have taken him for a statue if she had not seen his hands move along his string of rosary beads every few minutes. Naru paced up and down incessantly. Yasuhara looked as though he was feeling bad because he hadn't thought of this possibility himself.

'Right, we have to drive there in the car,' Lin declared. 'Mai-san, you come with us. Takigawa-san, take Matsuzaki-san and Kasai-san, and Brown-san, take Osamu-san and Hara-san.' He glanced over at Naru. 'Get your laptop,' he said simply. 'It's over there on the floor.'

'Mai-san?' Chiaki whispered to Mai.

Mai shrugged. 'We made a deal. I'll tell you tomorrow... later... at a normal hour.'

Chiaki raised her eyebrows, but didn't say anything else.

On the way to the lodge, Mai sat in the back of the car while Lin drove and Naru sulked in the passenger seat. Lin glanced at her once in the rear-view mirror and she smiled sleepily at him. His lips made a fraction of a movement and she took that to mean he had smiled back. She kept her gaze on the wing mirror to see if Naru would catch her eye, but he continued to stare stubbornly at the road, a permanent frown on his face. Mai was tempted to say something like, 'It takes forty-seven muscles to frown,' or, 'Your face will stick like that,' but she was too tired to deal with the tirade of abuse she would get, and the humour of it wasn't worth it when she wasn't up to standard.

Mai followed Lin and Naru into the lodge – they were the first to get there by far as the others had been detained at traffic lights. She hoped they wouldn't get lost but then noticed that the lodge had bright lights and a neon sign pointing it out. Naru strode ahead in temper and flung the doors open.

'Does he just not _need _sleep?' Mai asked Lin, confused.

'On the contrary,' Lin smirked. 'That's why he's so bad-tempered. If he doesn't get the precise amount of sleep he thinks he needs, there'll be hell to pay.'

'But he's always staying up really late,' Mai protested.

'Yes, but that's fine because it's _his _choice,' Lin said mockingly. 'If someone _else _wakes him up, it's the end of the world.'

Mai giggled. 'I didn't think Naru would be so melodramatic,' she said.

'If you think he's bad now, you should have seen the tantrums he threw when he was younger,' Lin replied. 'I didn't know him as well then, but the times I saw him he was always stropping off about something that hadn't gone his way. It comes with being so intelligent, I suppose. Geniuses are rarely very agreeable. Look at Beethoven. His love life was awful.'

Mai laughed, both at the idea of infant Naru 'stropping off' and the thought of Lin listening to classical music. 'Do you like Beethoven?' she quizzed.

Lin wrinkled his nose. 'He's all right. I prefer Bach.' He paused then shuddered. 'Naru likes Mozart. I find his music unbearable. I think Naru identifies with him because he was a child prodigy but everything he wrote is so _stifling_. Textbook classical music.'

'Naru likes everything to be as if it's come from a textbook,' Mai agreed. 'I don't know much about classical music though,' she confessed.

'Unsurprising – you have never been to Europe, I take it,' Lin answered. Mai shook her head. He said, 'It is worth a visit. You would like Paris. I imagine it is... romantic.'

Mai raised her eyebrows in curiosity. 'Have you been on a romantic weekend break to Paris, Koujo-san?' she asked teasingly.

Lin shook his head vigorously. 'Oh, no, definitely not. Any romantic break in Paris is destined to be touristy. I don't like big flashy affairs like the Eiffel Tower. Standard images of romance are rarely all they're cracked up to be. All that pretentious shit...' He glanced at Mai quickly. 'Sorry. Early morning,' he said gruffly. 'Nah. I don't like big tourist destinations.'

Surprised at this conversation, Mai shrugged. 'I think they're all right. They're famous because they're beautiful, and if you take them at face value and don't act like a tourist, they're probably great.'

'I guess you're right, but I can't be bothered trying,' Lin replied. 'I prefer to go somewhere more low-key. I mean, people take their girlfriends on romantic breaks to the Eiffel Tower and propose there and it becomes their "special place" – how is it their special place when thousands of other couples have done the exact same thing?' He shook his head, perplexed. 'Then again, it's a grey area. It's rare that you find someone who wants what you want.'

Mai nodded blankly. It was then that she realised that she and Naru did probably not want the same things.

'Here are our keys,' Naru announced, marching over to them. 'We've all got separate rooms. More money for me to pay.'

'And of course, you can't afford it,' Lin quipped.

Naru glared at him. 'We'll be getting up at eight o'clock,' he said, and turned around and stormed up the stairs. Mai stared at him as though she were seeing him clearly for the first time. He was still painfully handsome, but now, all of a sudden, his hostile demeanour overshadowed that, and diminished his good looks. His blue eyes, so captivating, seemed as cheerless as they had been when she had first seen him in the audio-visual room at school, when she had realised that they weren't laughing.

She felt Lin's hand on her elbow. 'Come on,' he said quietly. 'We should get to bed before the others get here and start causing a load of noise. We'll be all right here.'

She nodded again and followed him numbly up the stairs. She felt like a total idiot. It was as if being so close to death had woken her up. Or as if the fire had burnt away a layer of stupidity that surrounded her.

'If you have any more dreams, or you have a problem, come and wake us up,' Lin said as they reached their landing. 'Naru's room 213 and I'm 214. Good night, Mai-san.'

Mai smiled wearily. 'Good night, Koujo-san,' she answered softly.

As she inserted her key into the door of room 218, she heard Naru, from the other end of the corridor, repeat, 'Koujo-san?' and Lin replied, 'Fuck off to bed, Naru.' Mai smirked and went inside.

OOOOO

Chiaki's first action of the day was to demand the promised explanation from Mai. 'Well then?' she asked her friend. 'What's going on? Since when do you call Lin Koujo-san?'

Mai sighed, but there was a trace of a smile around her tired lips. 'I said it was unfair that he's the only person that doesn't get a nickname or something,' she said in a low voice. 'So he suggested I call him Koujo-san. And I said he had to call me Mai-san. So there you go. That's all.'

'And Masako said you went to the cafeteria in the hospital,' Chiaki gushed.

'Yeah, just for a sandwich while we were waiting for Masako to wake up – so what?' Mai asked defensively.

'Did you pay for it?' Chiaki quizzed.

'No, I didn't,' Mai said hesitantly.

Chiaki squealed with delight. 'That's so _cute_!'

'Chiaki-chan, it was just a nice gesture,' Mai protested feebly. 'It doesn't mean anything.'

'It's the _start _of something,' Chiaki said enthusiastically.

'Don't go all girly on me,' Mai warned. 'Besides, you know as well as I do that it doesn't mean anything and you're just trying to put me off Naru,' she teased. Chiaki flushed guiltily and Mai added, 'I think he's just a jerk in general. To everyone. Good luck.'

At first Chiaki thought that Mai was being sarcastic, but she saw in her friend's eyes that she was sincere. 'You really don't mind if I like Naru?' she asked in disbelief.

Mai shook her head cheerfully. 'No, really, I don't. I still like him... You don't stop liking someone that easily... But I don't think it's going to happen. And after all, Masako has liked him all this time too. I think if I ended up going out with him, it'd spoil the whole idea of it.' Chiaki deduced from Mai's expression that there was something that the redhead wasn't divulging, but she didn't think it was anything to do with her and she wasn't going to push Mai when she had just given her consent to Chiaki liking Naru. Not that Chiaki had to ask Mai's permission, but she knew Mai had liked him before she had even met him so it was reassuring to know that Mai didn't mind.

'Thanks,' Chiaki said gratefully. 'But go you, too. Lin's just as mysterious as Naru. He's just less obnoxious. I wonder what it is about obnoxious people, that makes people want to talk to them.'

'Good question,' Mai agreed. 'I don't know – I guess they just like the idea of getting someone to change their ways. It's always a good feeling. But you have to decide if it's worth it. If there's something else out there for you that would be better.'

Chiaki nodded. 'It's hard, though... You don't know if there's anything better unless you leave this thing behind.'

'Yeah, exactly.' Mai sighed. 'It's all so confusing.' Again Chiaki got the idea that Mai was hiding something and this time she wanted to ask what it was, but she thought Mai would divulge it if she thought she need to know, so she kept quiet.

'Mai-san, Chiaki-san, they're dismantling the portrait!' Masako called. 'Are you coming to see?'

Chiaki downed the cup of tea she had been drinking and shot up, as did Mai. They crossed over to the police van where the rest of SPR was examining the picture. Chiaki glanced over at the cordoned-off area where Naru and Lin's tent had once been. She knew from this that she would have to do something phenomenal for Naru to take any notice of her. Mai had saved his life and he didn't seem to be acting any differently towards her. Chiaki was partly relieved about this but she also felt bad for Mai. A little gratitude went a long way.

'Have they spoken to the police?' Chiaki whispered to Mai.

'About the tent, yeah, I think so,' Mai replied. 'I doubt they've told them about the painting. Who's going to believe that a painting is possessed? Even if they _are _ashes, they're the property of the girl's father and he's the one who put them there. It's not like they were stolen.'

They watched as Lin and Naru, wearing white forensic gloves (where they had found them, Chiaki had _no _idea), slowly unscrewed the back of the painting. Holding it horizontally, they took off the back frame – and were greeted by a thin layer of black ash.

Ayako gasped and Chiaki saw her hold onto Houshou, who winced. John looked like he was about to cry and Yasuhara looked horrified. Masako swayed slightly. Next to her, Mai covered her mouth with her hand. Further up, Lin only scowled, and Naru didn't react at all. Chiaki herself took a step back – she had never been so close to real death before. Before, there had never been tangible evidence of the ghosts they were hunting.

Diligently, Lin poured the ash into a bag and sealed it quickly. Naru turned to his employees with a solemn expression. 'We must return these to the rest of the ashes and exorcise and bless them. This—' He gestured to the painting, '—must be destroyed.'

'Surely you're not going to burn it, Naru?' Ayako asked incredulously.

Naru was obviously not grateful for the interruption. 'What do you think is the best way to destroy something that is made from cellulose, Matsuzaki-san?' he asked.

As Ayako stared at Naru in horror, Houshou put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her towards him. 'It's true that burning it is the easiest way to destroy it,' he confessed, 'but don't worry, it won't be disrespectful to Nayuko. We've removed the ashes so it's not her we're burning anymore.'

It was with wistful eyes that Chiaki watched this exchange. She felt almost jealous – she had no one to comfort _her _like Ayako had Houshou. Next to her, Mai shifted and Chiaki flushed, feeling ashamed of herself. The other girl didn't even have any parents. Chiaki berated herself for being so ungrateful. She glanced over at Naru; she didn't know why she expected anything from him, because he had never shown the slightest trace of affection for anyone.

After he had finished dealing with the ashes, Naru left Lin to finish dismantling the painting while he returned to where he had slept only the night before.

'I don't think Okabe knows we have the picture here with us,' Mai said suddenly.

Chiaki frowned. 'What? He set fire to Naru's tent! Why would he do that if he didn't know?'

Mai shrugged. 'I don't know... I just have this feeling,' she said. 'It feels a bit... different this time.'

Chiaki opened her mouth to protest when Naru came back, a studiously blank expression on his face. 'This fire was created by Okabe himself, not using the painting,' he announced. 'He simply set fire to the tent. If we can prove this with CCTV, we'll be able to have him arrested and thus put the ashes back with the rest.'

Naru walked off towards the police van and Chiaki turned to Mai, open-mouthed. 'Well,' she said slowly, 'if he didn't know, he's about to find out.'

OOOOO

Mai sat quietly in the back of the car as she, Naru and Lin travelled to Okabe's house. Naru had managed to produce a CCTV tape that showed someone setting fire to the tent and although he couldn't say for sure that it was Okabe, police questioning would surely reveal that it was. While the police took him into custody, SPR would be able to reunite the two sets of ashes and exorcise both them and the painting. Obviously Naru had managed to arrange all this as well, despite the uneasy relations with the police officers involved in the case. Mai had the feeling that they had only agreed to help because they hadn't come up with any leads themselves.

Mai contemplated Naru's behaviour over the course of the case. He was getting further and further from the Naru that appeared in her dreams. She wondered if he had a split personality and it was just becoming more evident – or if he felt that he had to be more horrible in life because he had been so nice in her dreams. Or, she considered for the first time, maybe he didn't visit her in her dreams at all. Maybe it was just a figment of her imagination, the part of her subconscious that was psychic creating a medium through which to receive information, and creating it in Naru's image. That option was becoming more and more likely.

Even if he _was _appearing in her dreams, nothing he could say to her sleeping form would negate the fact that he was so damn _rude_ when she was awake. Not so much as a thank you when he had almost died and although she hadn't done it for gratitude, surely he could step down from his high horse for long enough to acknowledge the fact that she had saved his life. She almost wished he had never appeared in her dreams in the first place acting like he was somebody else, because then she wouldn't have been confused, would have been quite happy to accept that he was a sarcastic bastard and wouldn't have given him the time of day.

They arrived at Okabe's house and got out of the car. Naru immediately marched over to what Mai guessed was a plain-clothes policeman, while Mai herself hung back with Lin.

'That was very astute of you,' he commented. 'Not even Naru realised that the fire had been human in origin until... well, he found out.'

Mai shrugged. 'It made sense. He wouldn't have let us into the house if he'd known who we were. He probably knew that someone was investigating the painting but not that it was paranormal investigators. If he'd known it was _us_, he would've just used the painting, wouldn't he?'

Lin nodded. 'Did you dream about that?' he asked.

'No, I figured it out for myself,' Mai replied proudly. Lin raised his eyebrows in an impressed way, and smiled at her.

'Lin, you are too old for gossip,' came Naru's ever-cheerful voice from next to them. 'The policeman is now going to question Okabe. They have produced a search warrant, under the guise of finding what he used to start the fire, and so we will be allowed into the house.' He gestured to the car. 'Get in. If he sees us, that will be the end of it.'

Mai sighed and got back in the car, bracing herself for another long period of silence. After so many months of it working for SPR when the others – Ayako, Bou-san, John, and Masako – weren't there, conversation was refreshing.

'There he goes,' Naru murmured, and Mai craned her neck to look through the windscreen. Okabe had answered the door to the policeman, who showed identification and then entered into an exchange that didn't look too friendly. Okabe was as difficult and evasive as he had been when they had spoken to him, from what Mai could see. She seriously doubted that this was worth the strain on her neck, but all of a sudden Okabe stamped his foot and shouted something at the policeman before taking on a resigned attitude. The policeman produced a pair of handcuffs and wrapped them around his wrists.

'Yes!' Mai exclaimed. 'We'll be able to perform the exorcism!' She paused. 'Who's going to do it?'

'John can do it. He works with children,' Naru said matter-of-factly. 'The others will be here soon.' Without a signal, he got out of the car and began to walk towards the house. Mai and Lin soon followed.

Okabe saw them at the last minute. His expression was one of confusion but it turned quickly to rage. He pointed a finger at Naru and shouted, 'You liar! You told me that bullshit about sensing a spirit? You were after me all along!'

Mai couldn't see Naru's face but she didn't need to; Okabe's increased fury said it all. 'I bet he's getting the "You're All Stupid and I'm Great" look,' she said to Lin. 'You?'

Lin smirked. 'I think I have to agree.'

OOOOO

'In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...'

Ayako was glad neither she nor Houshou had to perform the exorcism. If it had been her, she wouldn't have been capable; if it had been Houshou, she wouldn't have been capable of watching. She had no intention of clinging to him like a dependent woman but his presence comforted her, as much as she didn't like to admit it.

It felt more like a séance. The entire SPR crew was cramped into the small studio at the top of the ruined house, facing the ashes, now all together, and the painting, which had been placed on the easel. Masako and Chiaki were huddled together as usual, but they were missing Mai, who had arrived earlier and so was standing in the opposite corner with Lin, who seemed solemn but unaffected. Yasuhara seemed rather dejected – probably because he hadn't done much in the last few days of the case.

'In the beginning there was the word...'

This was still rather unfamiliar to Ayako but she didn't take time to listen to what John was saying. Instead she fixed her eyes on the painting. The girl's gaze held hers more strongly than ever. Suddenly, as John continued with the exorcism, the painting began to hiss, and smoke began to rise up away from it. A piercing shriek filled the air, laced with pain, betrayal and sorrow. It was followed by several more from the female investigators; Ayako was too terrified to know whether one of the voices had been hers or not. She was conscious only of the smoke, the sound and the sensation of Houshou's hand being in hers. The room was incredibly hot.

As the smoke cleared, Ayako noticed two strange things. Firstly, the painting had disintegrated into ash as it should have done so many times. Secondly, Mai had buried her head in Lin's chest. That wasn't strange, as he was the nearest person and it was a natural reaction, but as Ayako watched, Lin actually placed his arms around her shoulders in an attempt at comfort. Slowly and awkwardly but it was still totally unexpected. What a shame that that hadn't happened on a happier day.

'Come on,' Houshou whispered in her ear. 'They're going to burn the painting now. Let's go and get some fresh air.'

Ayako nodded and let him lead her out of the room, past a deathly white Masako and a sobbing Chiaki, who were holding onto each other for dear life. When they were outside, he said, 'Are you okay?'

'I'll be fine,' Ayako replied shakily. 'Thank you... for bringing me out. I think I would have cracked if we'd stayed in there.'

'Don't mention it,' Houshou smiled. 'I'd rather come out here with you anyway.' He paused. 'Shall we go and get something to eat?' he asked nervously.

Ayako decided to put aside all negative thoughts and just go with it for once. 'Yes,' she said unreservedly. 'But let's get something cold.'

'Agreed,' Houshou said firmly.

OOOOO

This time, John did not feel nervous as he rang on Nara Kaede's bell. After exorcising the painting of Nayuko he had felt more peaceful than he had done in a long time. It was with a sincere smile on his face and an urn of ashes in his hands that he stood now outside the house with Yasuhara.

Kaede opened the door. Her face fell when she saw them, but when she spotted the urn in John's hand, her eyes widened and her expression brightened. 'You came back!' she said in amazement. 'Come on in, come on in!'

'We have come to return you Nayuko's ashes,' John said calmly, handing the urn to her. They stood in the living room; the children were at school. 'I performed a ceremony that released her spirit, and I have blessed these ashes. Your daughter is at peace now.' After the exorcism, John had poured holy water over the urn, and Masako had confirmed that there was no longer a spirit presence around them or the painting.

Kaede's eyes filled up with tears of joy. She flung her arms around John's neck and said, 'Thank you so much.' While he was still gathering his senses, she stood back and smiled at them both. 'Thank you. And thank your colleagues.' She looked down at the urn that she held securely. 'I will be able to tell my children about their sister now.'

John smiled back. 'Tell them she is watching over them,' he said softly.

The priest left the woman's house with a weight lifted off his shoulders. He noticed, however, that Yasuhara did not seem to be sharing the cheerful mood. 'Osamu-san, is there something wrong?' John asked concernedly.

Yasuhara shrugged. 'I just wish I could do more, I guess,' he confessed. 'I'm the only one without any psychic power at all so I pride myself on research, but that's not a unique skill, either.'

John smiled at him empathetically. He knew the feeling – he had felt ridiculous upon first coming to Shibuya because everyone ridiculed his Kansai dialect. Now, though, they were used to it, and he was as much a part of the group as everyone else, and not just because he was an accomplished exorcist. 'It wouldn't matter if you were rubbish at research too, Osamu-san,' John said reassuringly. 'You are valued as much for _your _presence as for the addition of your skills.'

Yasuhara considered this and then smiled. 'You're right,' he agreed. 'Thanks. You know, you're quite good at making people feel better.'

'Any time, it's what I do,' John replied.

Yasuhara laughed the laugh of a friend. 'That must be such a _creepy _job, listening to people's woes all the time... I mean, what if they start talking to you about their sex life?'

'Sex is as much a part of God's work as anything else,' John replied placidly.

'_That _is a good one.'

'Are you intending to tell me your woes about Hara-san?' John asked innocently.

Yasuhara's jaw dropped indignantly. But his face turned pink.

OOOOO

'I'm glad it's all resolved,' Chiaki said to Mai in a low voice. 'And that they delivered the ashes back to Nayuko's mother. It must be horrible not to bury a child.'

Mai nodded. 'It must be horrible for Okabe-san, too. After all, she was his own daughter and that was why he went like that. Grief for her led him to hurt her. That must be awful.' She sighed. 'At least he's somewhere better now, where they'll look after him.' Naru had informed them that Okabe had been entered into a psychiatric ward and was being treated for severe manic depression. Despite the stigma, he was well taken care of, Mai was sure.

'I'm off, then,' Chiaki declared with a yawn. 'I'm going to get my brother to wait on me hand and foot. Cold drinks, ice cream...' She smiled, and gave Mai a hug, which the redhead warmly returned. 'I'll see you soon, no doubt,' Chiaki said with a knowing smile.

Mai nodded conspiratorially. 'Yeah, for our next gruelling case,' she agreed. 'Sweet dreams.'

The door shut and the bell rang behind Chiaki, leaving Mai alone in the SPR office. She didn't intend to stay long, but she wanted to savour the feeling of being back on familiar ground as opposed to in one of those ill-fated tents. Everyone had returned to the office to complete documentation and now all the Irregulars had left, leaving only Mai, Naru and Lin. Mai clicked the Print button on her computer screen and pulled the last file on the case out of the printer, before putting it into a folder, dating it and putting it into the cabinet with the rest of SPR's cases. She shut down the computer and pulled on her jacket.

She was debating whether – and if so, how – to say goodbye to Naru and Lin when the latter emerged from his office looking rather weary. He smiled tiredly at Mai when he saw her. 'Fully recovered, Mai-san?' he asked.

'I think so,' she replied. 'It was a depressing case. We don't usually have to deal with _people_. Well, you know, living people.'

Lin nodded and leaned against the side of her desk. 'You get used to it. The feeling of laying a spirit to rest always outweighs the burden of having to deal with upset ghosts. You do very well, though. You're very caring and yet you find a good balance between being too indifferent and caring too much.'

'I don't think I could ever be indifferent,' Mai said quietly. 'These are people. Not only do they not have the chance to live any more, but they can't even _die_. They're just trapped. And each one of them for their own reason – it's hard to accept sometimes. But you're right, it's worth it.' She smiled. 'And I like working here.'

Lin smiled back, and then seemed to notice her jacket and the bag slung over her shoulder. 'Leaving now?' he queried.

'Yeah,' Mai said, and then her stomach rumbled. She flushed.

Lin laughed. 'Would you like to get some lunch before you go home, to forget about all these poor unfortunate souls?' he asked. 'Somewhere that has something better than hospital food?'

Pleasantly surprised, Mai nodded and smiled. 'I'd like that.'

'I can pay for this, too,' Lin quipped as they left the building.

'No you can't!' Mai protested immediately. 'You can't keep paying for my food! I can pay for it myself!'

'How about I put it on the SPR bill, is that okay?' Lin smirked.

Mai narrowed her eyes in thought, and then the corners of her lips lifted up in a mischievous smile. 'That sounds like a compromise and a half,' she conceded happily.

OOOOO

Back in the office, Naru sighed, rubbed his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, refusing to acknowledge his fatigue. Eventually, he decided that a drink was in order. Reluctantly he got up and opened his office door, shouting across the foyer, 'Mai! Tea!'

There was no answer. Perplexed, Naru glanced into the main office area to find that Mai was not there. Disgruntled at the fact that she hadn't informed him of her departure, he stomped over to Lin's office to inquire as to whether the older assistant had known that she had left. He knocked on the door and shoved it open, but he might as well have had it slammed back in his face. Lin wasn't there either.

Naru stared thoughtfully at the door to the building. He noticed it wasn't properly shut. He moved to shut it when a gust of wind blew it slightly open, allowing a whistle of clean breeze to blow through and assault Naru's nostrils. He frowned. He told himself that his concern was ghost hunting. Yet he was speechless.

The door blew shut with a sharp slam. Naru glanced at the mirror that had been obnoxiously placed in the hall by the Miko. He was standing directly in its centre. It surrounded him like a frame, a picture of a boy genius all alone while his two assistants had disappeared to God knows where, most likely together. But... but... they never even _spoke _to each other!

No. This did not interest Naru. It did not confuse him. It did not annoy him. It did not vex him. He was a scientist... and a complete idiot.

Naru scowled at his reflection. His reflection winked back.

**Fin**

_There we go – after over a year, it's finally done! It feels so good to finally finish something. I finished about four full-length Harry Potter stories once upon a time and I'd almost forgotten the euphoria._

_Thank you for reading and sorry about the wait. There isn't a sequel but the oneshot 'White Nights' (which I will put up soon) is compliant with both this story and Smitten Apart. I'd also like to say here that SA is going to be rewritten, with the same plot but taking the White Heart series into account. _

_To clarify, this story is NOT compliant with SA and regarding the novels, it is AU. This story takes place directly after the last arc of the anime. There are references to novel details but they're not spoilers. Mai's conclusion, that Naru's appearances in her dreams are either her subconscious taking the form of Naru or Naru himself using astral projection, DOES happen in the novels but slightly later. _

_Until soon, I hope._


End file.
